At 09:20 PM 11/19/2004 -0500, Wayne Jolly @ Canadian IT wrote:
>Steve/List
>
>I consider myself fortunate and I suspect a few of the other Listmembers
>have already discovered what I am about to disclose to you. There exists
>near London a man who in my opinion is one of the most expereinced
>restoration artists on the planet, his name; Tony Colegrave. (snip)
I can add something to this; I have only had communications with Tony, not hired his services, but I think can tell you why you should.
I have replaced rivets in the nose of a couple of saddles, and attempted to re-frame one. It is not necessary to mess with the nose rivets for a re-frame, but in my case I was drilling out steel and putting in copper, and I wanted the nose to match. I have two broken B17's, and have procured three frames and rivets, so I thought I was ready to begin. Looking at this job, I expected the rear rivets to be easier than the fronts. This was another mistake. The ONLY easy rivet is the one in the middle of the nose.
You have to get an anvil into the nose of the thing to hammer the fronts; this is tough, but manageable if you have vises, various chunks of steel, punches...whatever. In the rear, however, the location of the rails (on a B17, a 73 might be worse yet) makes it nearly impossible to get a straight shot at the rivet.
This is the fundamental problem with this job: it is very hard to hammer a soft rivet straight enough to make this work, while keeping the leather and the frame pressed together, and fighting the leather's tendency to pull it all apart. Picture trying to drive a copper 16d nail into a piece of wood that someone is trying to take from you, and you are getting the picture. The copper rivets require quite a smack, then get all mushy and skew sideways. Then you remove it and try again.
Just for the record, I have a solid history of McGuyverishness; I am rarely thwarted, but my B17 job has used up about two saddles worth of rivets, and is only half done. At least my local True Value carries the rivets.
If you want to do this yourself, bring a friend to hold the saddle in various attitudes for you, and please tell us about it when you are done. Whatever special tools and knowledge Tony has, they are warranted.
Jeff "off to the hardware store again" Slotkin Goose Creek, SC