[David Dunlop]

I was able to get a little more work done on this part of the project as well this morning.

After studying the hole in the back wall of the box, where the original hardware was installed, I found it was 11/64-inch in diameter. Just the right fit for a 10-24 screw. The outer hole in the box, partially tucked under the right lower hinge plate, was countersunk. The edge of the hinge plate was bowed outward slightly from the original screw being hammered back out of the hole when removed, but I think I can fix that easily enough down the road.

Test fitting the new bracket and taking s few measurements gave me a probable length of the original screw as being 1-inch. So far so good!

The hole in the bracket for the screw is centred in one end of the bracket. Once again, to give myself a little wiggle room getting the new bracket correctly lined up inside the box, when I install it, I went with a 13/64-inch hole in the bracket.

The new look of the metal on this replica bracket did not match well at all, when test fit directly across from the smaller surviving bracket, so I decided to age it with some zinc plating. This time, however, I did not go through any of the recommended cleaning steps to be done before plating that would normally give one a good even distribution of new zinc on the bracket. I just hooked it up, along with its hardware, and dropped it in the solution for one hour.

Sure enough, the final plating was very patchy and random, and much more like the surviving original. I am quite pleased with it, but have now discovered yet another step may be required. To confirm this possibility, I will need to take another close look inside the box, out in the sunlight. It is going to be raining here again for the next four days!


David