Reply To: Gen 3 Modifications
Gosh-a-rootie, this thread is almost two years old!!
And I still can’t seem to control my impulses to modify stuff. I’ve got the new WE 12″ rods for my Gen 3 Pro and I liked them so much I decided to take it a wee step further and make a second set for my Gen 2 rig. The new WE rods measure out at 0.2554″ on my Chinese micrometer and there’s still a fair bit of play between the rods and the handle bores. I checked McMaster.com and found they had ultra-machinable letter-size F drill rod (0.257″), so I bought a couple of 3 ft lengths. I don’t have a lathe on which I could do a proper job of turning the ends down to .250″ for my 1/4″-28 dies, so I chucked up the sections in a cordless drill and spun them against my 1X30 Harbor Freight belt sander. I only had to remove about 0.004″ on the radius, so it only took a few seconds. The die did the trick and I had about four or five turns of thread on the one ends.
I was then surprised to find that these rods, at only 0.002″ bigger in diameter, wouldn’t move freely through the bores in two of my ten handles. It seemed as though something was obstructing the bores about midway through the handles. I did a bit of digging through my shooter supplies and I found a fresh bronze .243 rifle cleaning brush. I mounted it to a single section of cleaning rod and again, using a cordless drill, pushed the brush into the approximate center of the handles, gave it a few very short spins and was amazed to see how quickly bits of plastic began to show. This instantly solved the problem and all the handles now work smoothly over the 0.257″ rods.
This change added less than 0.002″ to the rod diameter, so I can’t say it was worthwhile, but there is a definite difference in the amount of play. The fact is that the 0.255″ rods are more than adequate for the job. Since switching to the new WE rods and handles, I haven’t had a need to make a correction in the middle of a sharpening session.
