The Frames - part 2

After bolting the plates together yesterday I wanted to fit the locating pins so that the plates can be separated and realigned quickly and accurately. I was worried about doing this as the proceedure involved driving a taper pin through from the front face of the front plate and then polishing it out totally so that the plate/pin joint was invisible. I drilled a 1mm hole in three locations for the three pins:



My clockmakers broaches came today so I used this immediately tonight to cut a taper hole right through the front plate. A stub of 1mm was left on the top plate and using a stake the pin was hammered home. The pin was cut on the back plate to leave a 1mm stub. These are the pins in place:



The pins were hammered home from the front face so this now needed filing and then fine sanding to get a perfect finish so the pin was invisible. Hopefully this picture explains what I mean:


Perhaps I am getting over excited but I can`t believe that you can`t see a joint from the front plate yet I am left with three nice little stubs on the back side of the plate which locate perfectly with the back plate.

I then took the hole lot around to my brother-in-laws to cut the plates out with his band saw. This took about an hour to get them roughed out. I now need to file them and after an hour at this tonight, I have a feeling a good few hours are left on this job!! The clock in the picture is also the one I am attempting. Note that I have left in the bolts on little tabs which I`ll cut off when I have finished filing. To be honest, they are overkill and the locating pins with a small clamp would surfice but I`ll leave them for now and then cut the tabs off when I am nearer to finishing.

Thanks for looking...

Chris