FORUM

Or "How I learnt to stop fighting the Forum and love the bandit". I needed to make this missing reel disc quickly. Couldn't find any suitable tool steel laying around here and was after 5pm so ventured to my local hardware supermarket which shuts at 7pm. Found this new spade for $14.50 with the correct gauge and almost enough flat, though lightly bowed. Annealed the spade in a circle to make it easier to roughly cut out. Then fully annealed the piece and hammered flat. Drilled the centre first so I could bolt one of the originals onto it as a pattern. Was then very easy to quickly cut the outer shape using large bench shears. A lot slower drilling the 10 holes though. After a quick wire wheel to soften the edges just needed heating and re-tempering. Much quicker than waiting 12 days for a part mailed by Jingle!

Another lovely original item, probably more than 100 days old, maybe a few scratches here & there, most likely New Old Stock, just simply butchered..........

No patience in this modern world, we want everything here & now.

Hopefully someone on the forum has the same model spade that over the years has some damage at handle end and we can utilise the remaining part to restore their spade to as original as possible.

Have the gold reserves finally run out in Western Australia and there is a surplus of shovels

Extraordinary, you know, it would not even have crossed my mind to make something like this, perhaps is does not help that I have neither the tools or skills to anyway, also I have loads of reel award discs spare ......

I am wondering what you could create from no spares or machine to start with, the mind boggles

It is tempting isn't it?
Having an insight into what's up for grabs at The M Harris World of Spares Sale, it has occurred to me to buy one of everything and then assemble a Frankenstein with lumps of wood and bailing twine holding together the different manufacturers' bits & bobs.
However I'm far too busy breathing, sleeping and stealing food.

BP

If possible I'll always err on the side of original parts. But this machine was made in Aust with a unique centre disc that is made of "Unobtainium". The machine is a 1945-50 hand made copy of a Pace Comet, but likely under licence, as it was manufactured by the pre-war Australian Pace distributeur. During and well after the war there were trade restrictions on anything non essential coming over, not even used parts it would seem. So amazingly it was worth hand making a small number of copies, in this case to a very high standard. With a lot of time and effort I just may have eventually found the similar scarce 10 stop Pace disc in the states and then converted for my use, but the chance of that happening was slim, and I needed the part asap. Pre-1970 bandits are not common here so there are no parts and no reason to need parts very often. There were once a lot of machines judging by the amount of tokens that turn up. Bob Klepner knew a salesman for Aristocrat who took vintage trade-ins that he sold back to the US in some numbers.

"Unobtainium" I like that and shall promptly steal, and claim it as my very own.


BP

I really dig the way you can get your self out of trouble by making parts I’d have never thought of that.

You really are the master

"I really Dig" …….. "Found this new spade "

I see what you did there.