The trick of packing strips of glue soaked leather into screw holes as a quick remedy for stripped screws has, through the years, been a good one. The problem I've found is in getting the leather in where you want it. It typically resists the procedure. Especially annoying is in something like player work where you already have 19 screws in a valve channel cover and find that you have two stripped screws already, and 13 more screws to go. Trying to get a piece of leather that has become al dente with the glue soaking and will fight like forty demons to keep from passing from inside the over sized shank hole in piece one, into the pilot hole in piece two where it will actually do you some good, is a test of one's philosophy on being outsmarted by dead things. This is one of those instances where Murphy was a raving optimist. It's like putting a sock on a snake, tail first. I made these tools a while back, to address this perfectly good excuse for screaming and breaking things, to avoid the frustration leading to screaming and breaking things, and the silly things worked great. I chose a wire diameter that fit fairly closely into the pilot hole needing the leather shim. This is the plunger. A length of K&S Engineering brass tubing (hobby shop or hardware store) that closely fit the wire was chosen as a barrel. Leather nuts were drilled and CA'd onto the barrel and plunger respectively as handles, so the tool can be used as a hypodermic to inject the leather strip into the hole. If you don't have a wire big enough for the hole you need to fill with leather, use a piece of tubing and plug the end with solder, choosing the next bigger telescoping tubing size for the barrel. You can make these things any size you want. I've made three, and have already lost the smallest one, hence there being two in the photos. Loading is pretty straightforward. Cut a leather strip the appropriate width and length, smear it with glue, and insert it into the injector. I've found that spinning the barrel of the injector between thumb and fingers as you feed in the leather strip makes the strip go in as if it likes the idea. Then insert the tool into the target hole, get it in as deep as you can, and press the plunger to inject the leather. You may then chuckle and gloat as you tighten the screw, if you like. Using Titebond, I haven't even bothered to clean the things afterward, and haven't had a problem with gluing the tool into monolithic uselessness. I've found them handy. I hope some of you do too. Ron N -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: leather injectors 1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 179405 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091028/12f1fa4c/attachment-0002.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: leather injectors 2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 59260 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091028/12f1fa4c/attachment-0003.jpg>
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