One of the features of the Gade is the knife switch that is on the side of the battery box.
I did quite a bit of searching to try and find something suitable with no joy so decided to see what I could come up with. A few bits and bobs were assembled - 3/16 and 20swg brass, 5BA roundhead and No 4 CSk woodscrews and a sample piece of Corian, I thought the coffee bean colour was a good match to Bakalite.
A piece of Corian was cut off with the woodcutting bandsaw, the 4tpi blade making light work of it.
The sawn face was then finished with a flycutter which gave a very good finish
The only downside being the fine swarf that is attracted to anything
Being plastic my usual electronic edge finder would not work but it was easy enough to hold a 10-20-40 block against the side and use that to touch against.
A couple of pockets were then milled to locate the brass contact blocks into.
Followed by a pair of CSK mounting holes, two clearance holes for the wire screws and a dimple to clear a rivit.
The back face was counterbored to take some splined nuts for the wire connecting screws.
The splined nuts were just a piece of 1/4" brass with a straight knurl that were then drilled and tapped 5BA before being parted off.
These were then just pressed into the counterbored holes using the vice.
A strip of 3/16" square brass was machined up from the larger flat bar that I had and a couple of steps machined so they would sit in the pockets.
Then drilled clearance for the screws and one for the pivot rivit.
The final thing before cutting off from the parent bar was to cut slots for the knife to fit into.
Talking of which, the knife was just a strip of brass cut from a scrap of 20swg sheet which was held in a small vice while the other end was held in a toolmakers clamp and a 90degree twist added
The final job was to fit the knife to the contact block with a copper rivit as the pivot, the inside is hidden so did not need a full snap head forming, just enough to stop the rivit falling out and to make the knife firm enough to stay in the closed position while the engine is running.
A couple of shots of the finished parts.
The Gade also uses quite a long hasp and staple to secure the battery box lid, again nothing to be found so a scrap of steel sheet and rivit were knocked about until they looked the part.
I quite enjoyed doing the hinge part of the hasp so thought I may as well do the matching hinges while I was at it. Just thin steel formed around a bit of 1/16" rod and then milled out to form the knuckles.
A bit of satin black paint tidied them up ready to be fitted
Last bit to make was a starting handle
Thats about it for tonight next time I'll splash a bit of paint on it all.
J