Glue on bushings for Old Black Center paddles?
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Hey everyone!
I am working on an ABS bushing that could be glued on to the top of the old black centered 1/4″ rod paddles, to allow for a tighter fit on either the original 1/4in rod or the newer slightly larger rod. I have a couple of these old paddles that MarcH sent me to use for prototyping and all of them are worn to the point of being loose on the new rods..
Would any one be interested in such an item? This would extend the length of the paddle about 3mm on each end and the top of the bushing would be flat rather than concave like the paddle is now. The bushing would be glued on with the appropriate glue (not determined as of yet) and once installed would remove most of the play between paddle and rod. The actual longevity of the bushings would need to be learned from actual uses as you would only have about 8mm of contact with the rod on either end.
Just wondering if this is a venture worth pursuing, MarcH think so as he suggested I look into this as other have DIYed this in the past.
These would available for both rod sizes if I come up with a workable solution and adhesive
Please let me know what you all think.
Thanks,
Doug
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I did a WHOLE LOT of experimenting with bushings in an attempt to reduce any angular errors due to the loose fit between rod and handle bores. Most of my initial experiments were geared to making glass platens, which were not available then.
First, I tried machining a 1/4″ groove in each half of handles made of wood (maple to be exact) I then glued the haves together with a rod in place. Sounds good, but didn’t work out very well. Photo below:
Next, I made the same out of Garolite, a phenolic compound equivalent to G10. Same results, but really tough stuff.
Next, I counter-bored the ends of the WE handles to 3/8″ diameter, then epoxied 3/8″ OD, 1/4″ ID bronze bushing. Sounds good, but didn’t work out very well. Actually, it proved workable, but the problem was in keeping the bushing bores concentric to each other and both parallel and equidistant to both faces. My $75 Chinese drill press just didn’t cut it. In those cases where the bores were reasonably concentric and parallel and equidistant, the angular error was too small to read with the angle cubes of the time. Here’s one:
Next, I tried to gun-drill 0.266″ bores in blocks of white ABS. While in the fixture, I drilled counterbores for the bronze bushings. Same result, but good enough that I was able to make a complete set of handles with brass platens for adhesive-backed diamond film, ranging from 15 micron to 0.3 micron.
Through this progression of reducing rod-to-bore errors, I found that I needed to correct for differences in the distance from rod center to platen faces. I had to adapt to this issue by using the VSTA adapters, which help you to correct for these differences. At the time, no one had really established a protocol for using the VSTA’s, so I developed a procedure that took only seconds. I used this system happily for at least several years. The reduction in angular errors was very effective, but the question was, was it necessary. Dozen and dozens, no, maybe hundreds and hundreds of users achieve extremely high levels of sharpness using the Wicked Edge systems, with few, if any design mods.
With the 2017 Gen 3 Pro introduction, WE tightened up the bores in their handles and increased the diameter of their rods. Not so much that either would fail to work with legacy rods and handles. I had already gone to 0.257″ rod diameter, so I was able to make use of the “tighter” arrangement.
I have since shifted all of my platens, both diamond and film to the new version handles (purchased as blanks and used unmodified). With the right technique, I can control my scratch patterns to very nearly 0.1 degree, which is WAY better than the earlier WE system. Of the complete collection of stones in my current active lineup, only one single stone requires correction for a slight error is platen thickness. The photo doesn’t show it very well, but the white/red handles are the WE blank versions. The beige/brown handles are cow leather strops.
Bottom line is that I no longer recommend adding bushings to eliminate errors due to looseness of fit. It shouldn’t be necessary and there simply isn’t enough of a payoff, when considering the effort required.
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Very interesting, but do most folks that are not as inclined as yourself, sill use their black paddles or have they all been replaced with the new stone?
My thoughts on brass bushing was slightly different being my first career was a school trained auto tech. If drilling was to be done I had thought about sleeving the entire length of the boar a would be done to a cylinder bore in an engine block or possibly finding a valve guild that would be long enough to work off label. That is until I looked at the paddles and realized there were screws in the way. Of course something like that is not a DIY solution nor cost effective, might as well just replace the paddles or the paddle with new stone..
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The gist of my comment was that for all of the time & effort expended trying to perfect the rod/handle marriage, I’ve found that the newest version of WE rods and handles work just fine. If one had machinist-level skills and equipment, they could certainly produce an ideal version, but why invest the time, $$ and effort when the simple answer is available in the currently offered equipment?
That being said, I know that my motivation was based more on curiosity than real need. If you really want to go down this path, I’ll be very curious as to what you finally achieve.
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