Jerry Feather

Thanks Rob. I take that as a compliment. I don't intend to sell them; but your thoughts do give me cause for some concern about just how to spread the use of them and expect to get them back.

I wonder now if the better plan might be to have individuals send me their gas cap which I could then separate and return with a new pawl for them to install. While is is apart they could re-key it if required. That would also save quite a bit on the mailing costs.

Jerry Feather

It turns out that I have been working up 24 sticks of bar stock rather than just 18. I guess I was not counting the slightly shorter ones that were the drops off the ends of the material as I had bought it.

I now have about 230 of the pawls cut and milled to the correct height with about 30 more to go. I can mill the cut surface of them at the rate of about 2 or 3 per minute.

Next I will set the mill up to cut the slot in the top for the lock. That is going to take quite a bit more time with each one and will involve first a plunge cut to depth then another cut to shape the back of the slot to match the original ones which have a sort of tiny flat surface in the back. That will be two separate operations and will take a few hours to do.

Kevin in Atlanta

That I like. I have a few that need the repair and will need to be rekeyed. Count me in!

Randy V

Works for me (was our plan awhile back).

I currently have a broken cap (piece of red outer cap is missing) that is keyed for my car plus an unbroken cap that needs my lock assembly swapped into.

Ninespub

^^^^^ What Randy said, I've got the same issue with a broken old cap and need a lock assembly swap into a new one I have.
I'm in, but turnaround timelines would be important to know, as well as cost..

G8RB8

I don't need the tool, if that helps.

Jerry Feather

You mean you don't need my tool. Three 16 penny nails through a scrap of plywood . . . is a tool.

G8RB8

A tool. Yours is THE tool.

I may not even bother with that. The heat gun and screwdriver worked pretty well last time.

Jerry Feather

Thanks Gator. I stand clarified.

I am now back to where I was before with the failed batch of pawls. And, I have the mill set up to mill the slot in the top of the new batch of pawls for the lock. I think I am going to do away with the slight flat in the back of the slot since the amount of material available for it is only about 13 thou. and I can't really see the need for it. I'll finish these out the way I am going and then when I finally get the tops of the pawls narrowed so they will fit into the lock assembly I find out if the little flat is needed. Then, if it is I can put it in later, and with a sightly smaller end mill bit.

Jerry Feather

More careful study of these components shows me that the back of the bottom of the lock cylinder is flat so that when the cap is in the unlocked position the back of the pawl needs to match the flat on the back of the bottom of the lock cylinder so the pawl can move forward enough for the teeth to mesh. The flat on the cylinder is .200 in wide and the top of the pawl, when finished, is .310 wide, so the amount of material left in just milling the flat .200 wide may not be enough to bother with; which means that I may just mill the back inside of the slot in the pawl flat all across.

Jerry Feather

Here are a couple of pictures of where the Pawl project is at this point. The metal ones are practice work pieces derived from the batch of failed pawls, and one is shown next to one of the originals that I have glued back together to take measurements from.

I think I have the mill set up correctly now to perform this step of the fabrication. Then I have ordered another special mill cutter to refine the back of the slot in the top. In the meantime I think I'll narrow the top of the pawls then maybe even drill the hole in the back for the spring, all while I'm waiting for the cutter to mill the little flat on the back of the top slot.

Kevin in Atlanta

Outstanding work.

Jerry Feather

Thanks Kevin

Here is about 2/3 or the current batch completed to this first cut at the slot in the top. There are about 170 pawels here, including the three off to the side that I cut with the teeth pointing the wrong way. What a waste. I can do this single cut to about 3 every two minutes. This is about 2 hours worth of milling shown here.

G8RB8

Can't you send those to Australia?

Jerry Feather

Now, that's an idea I hadn't thought of. Then when I do it occurs to me that of all the things that the persons there might be thought of doing backwards, tightening their various fasteners counterclockwise would be another one of them. Then I have to wonder whether anything they do there is actually "backwards" or if in fact they are doing it right and we are backwards on this side of the planet.

After all, when you look at the planet from the north pole, it seems to be turning counterclockwise or to the left. Then much of what we do on the north side is counterclockwise, such as various races, movement of fluids around low pressure, etc. The clock and screw threads are two of the things we do to the right, and that seems to be unnatural (or backwards?) on this side of the equator.

Even driving on the right side of the road is probably unnatural, and is certainly contrary to the history of travel, clear back to the Romans who apparently traveled on the left. It is only with the introduction of various artificial circumstances that gave rise to travel on the right. Even all cars in the US had the steering wheel on the right until about 1909 when Henry Ford started putting it on the left. Wagons and other horse drawn conveyances still have the driver on the right.

For that matter, I have to wonder just what it is that makes the Southern Hemisphere the one that is down under. What is it that puts us at the top? The only thing I can come up with is perhaps majority vote. I also wonder if they run their races clockwise. Their right hand screw threads are certainly correct for their hemisphere; so the failed Pawls will just have to remain waste.