- Thread starter
- #461
WOW! It turned out much better than I would have ever hoped! 
You are the man Cap!!!!
You are the man Cap!!!!1956 Serial Toggle Nickel Plated
- Thread starter GlennConti
- Start date
Even more:
That's amazing! Well done Cap! Congrats once again Glenn!
Congregation Glenn! The before and after are amazing!
As far as Captains fine work...
Captain! Captain! Captain! Captain!
As far as Captains fine work...
Captain! Captain! Captain! Captain!
Wow. Speechless.
That is spectacular.
I'd like to throttle the guy that took a pair of pliers to the adjustment dial, though........rasafrasa
That is spectacular.
I'd like to throttle the guy that took a pair of pliers to the adjustment dial, though........rasafrasa
Looks absolutely fantastic Cap! great job!
- Thread starter
- #468
Great Idea!
Before:
View attachment 548365
After:
View attachment 548366
And it was a mechanical mess too. Everything was frozen and falling apart!
Before:
View attachment 548365
After:
View attachment 548366
And it was a mechanical mess too. Everything was frozen and falling apart!
Last edited:
I was just doing that, Glenn/ Thank you! And yes, that is original ​plating
- Thread starter
- #470
One more before and after:
Before:
After:
View attachment 548370
Sorry Cap, but I am so wowwed by what you did! I'll stop now.
Before:
After:
View attachment 548370
Sorry Cap, but I am so wowwed by what you did! I'll stop now.
Great job Cap. Im happy...very happy..Im sad...very sad...Happy it turned out great, but sad now that its over....what are we gonna do now?
- Thread starter
- #472
Lol! It doesn't have to end. We can always debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin forever.
So to answer a hanging question:
Is it a soft or hard click?
Is it a soft or hard click?
- Thread starter
- #474
Well Gentlemen, this thread has been nothing short of gentlemanly conduct, collective/individual theories, and good ol' fashioned fun. I am still amazed at the knowledge you gents possess and for that, I want to thank you all. It is fun to sit back and watch as well as listen to the engineering guys discuss different theories back and forth. Like I said, this will certainly be a thread for the B&B history books.
After I took the hill on the disassembly of this thing (with everyone's help of course), I had to leave on a short business trip so the toggle got put on hold for a few days. Well, today is my day to catch up on everything so the workshop is in full swing. I had to take polishing this thing very slow and steady. As you gents know, there is a layer of gold under this thing so getting too liberal with the polishing compound and rubbing too hard could potentially remove this tired old nickel. Overall, I think it went very well and I was able to restore quite a bit of luster on the nickel plated parts. In fact, I think the doors are going to impress everyone watching here.
After getting everything polished up, I shifted my focus to the adjustment mechanism. As we can all see from the drawings and interpretation of the patent info, the adjustment of the blade is made possible by movement of the adjuster plate (#24). This so called adjuster plate or "platform" moves up and down when the adjuster dial is turned clockwise and counter-clockwise. So when the dial is turned clockwise (toward setting 5) the gap increases. The dial is reverse-threaded on to the lower extension of 24. I know you gents all get this so I figured I would toss in a quick and dirty version for anyone just jumping in the thread
ANYWAYS, I know that we were all discussing the firmness of the "click" on this model a few posts back. Some of you that have models like this (whether they are the gold plated or nickel plated versions) all seemed to make the comment that the click is anything less than a "firm" click, and please correct me if this isn't the case with your 1-5 toggleThe click isn't like the external indicator springs of the bottom-dials and later fatboys anyways, right? I took this thought and stored it in my brain so I could come back to it when I was ready to start reassembling the razor.
As we can all recall, the click spring on this toggle was seized inside the adjuster dial pretty bad. It had mineral buildup, crud, and it locked up tight enough to prompt a previous user to grab some pliersWell, once I got in there and cleaned everything out, I was able to clearly see how everything worked. The design may seem complex when looking at the drawings but in reality, it is quite simple. So once I gained an understanding of how things worked, I decided to do a mock reassembly on the parts that make up the adjustment mechanism. Once I got everything put together, I noticed that the click of the spring was weak and not very audible at all. To fix this, I simply took the click spring back out and laid it down on a flat surface and used my index fingers to press down on the outer edges so as to increase the resilience. I then re-installed the spring and WOW. There was a significant increase in firmness of the clicks, as well as the sound it made when making adjustments. I am quite impressed with how this has turned out so far.
So with this, I wanted to ask you all what you think. Is the soft, quiet clicks of those other 1-5 toggles out there a result of the razor being dirty (specifically inside the adjustment mechanism), or was the razor designed to function so? Could it be as simple as the spring steel losing its resilience from use? Working on all these regular fatboys, I have encountered quite a few worn out springs...I honestly do not know what to think as many have brought up R&D and engineering changes to make things better but wouldn't the inventors do exactly what I did if they intended the spring to be firm and audible? I am excited to hear everyone's opinion here
Post-polish photos coming soon!!!!
I think Cap said there was a very firm click above.
- Thread starter
- #475
To me the real hanging question is whether or not the A-3 toggle was made in 1955. You guys are only assigning a 50% probability of truth to the statement: "The A-3 Toggle was made in 1955". You guys are some serious skeptics.
I just wanted the final fully assembled results.
It is a very nice click, John. Firm and audible!
My goodness, Cap! That is one looker of a razor. Fantastic work! It has been something else to see this baby come to life!
great job and great thread 
You guys are only assigning a 50% probability of truth to the statement: "The A-3 Toggle was made in 1955". You guys are some serious skeptics.
Healthy skepticism is the key to finding the truth.
In one of my several old lines of work, we called that a "hung jury." Until we see more evidence, I'd say we let the ol' horse lie dead for a while and let the battle of assumptions abate.
How 'bout it?
