Tutorial: Peening with nickel silver 'spike' pins

[rambus007]

I thought this might be helpful for newbies wanting to peen their own razor or anyone that comes across these spike style pins. They look like little nails and come with nickel silver collars. I find it much easier and quicker to peen with these then to use standard rods and washers. It's a short tutorial and I hope someone finds it useful. Feedback is welcome. I'm sure there are many ways to do it but this is how I do it.

It was after watching a DOVO video that I realized I needed a small hole drilled into a board to make these work. Good luck and have fun! I used my iphone so sorry if some pics are blurry. This tutorial also assumed you have already created your scale and drilled your holes for your pins.

Step 1: I first drill a 1/16" hole into a block of cocobolo. I used this block because it has an imperfection so I won't be using it for anything else anyways and also because cocobolo is a very hard wood. You can see that I've stuck a 1/16" rod into the hole to confirm the size of the hole.

Step 2: Take the pin and insert into your pre-drilled scales. Of course you'll complete the wedge pin first. In my photos I used original scales so I didn't have to re-pin the wedge. You will notice that the collar is a bit too tight to slide over the pin. It's supposed to be like this and this is why we need to 1/16" hole from step one.

Step 3: Now take the collar and place it with the smaller (top) side of the dome downwards onto the hole in the piece of wood.

 

[rambus007]

Step 4: Place your pin onto the collar and then take your ball peen hammer and strike the pin about 5-10 times until the pin collar is secured against the side of the scales. The snugness of the collar wll hold it in place temporary while you snip off the remainder of the spike.

Step 5: Take your snippers or flush cutter and snip off all but about 1/2 mm of the spike. Try to keep the cut parallel to the edge of the scales so you have a nice 90 degree cut. My photo is blurry but you can see there was a bit of a point resulting from the cut. If your snips tend to do this then you'll need to leave about 1mm so that you and file/sand it flat after snipping.

 

[Wid]

Nice tutorial. I use a wood dowel with a hole drilled through it to drive the washer down onto the the nail.

 

[rambus007]

Step 6: After filing the rod smoothly (you can also use a dremel with a cutting wheel) you can then begin peening with your ball peen hammer on your smooth metal surface. It's also very important that your ball peen is absolutely smooth as well. If you can't see your reflection in your ball peen then it's probably not smooth enough. As always use many light taps instead of a few hard strikes. The scales will close up and slowly tighten around the pins holding the wedge or blade snugly. When you are comfortable with the degree of snugness, give it about 5-10 more taps and then stop.

Step 7: After peening I like to make my pins nice and shiny by one of two methods. You can use a small amount of metal polish or else turn on your buffer and use white rouge on a loose sisal buffing wheel.

That's it! There's no need to use a vice and you only need to make one snip as opposed to two for regular peens.

 

[rambus007]

Thanks Rick. I never thought of using a dowel lol.

 

[rambus007]

Has anyone used this tutorial at all?

 

[professorchaos]

I would, I think it is quite helpful. But I don't do much re-pinning. Perhaps it should go in the Straight Razor Restoration forum?