Bellpush

Bellpush Spring

Not much progress on the bellpush over the past week because most of my attention has been focussed on another non-concertina-related project. Yesterday was a day off though, so in the evening I managed to stop thinking about the other project for long enough to tackle the problem of the spring that provides the button resistance.

My original plan had been to use a single strip of brass as both the button spring and one of the switch conductors. This turned out to be impractical though because the button has a vertical travel of 5mm and there isn’t enough room inside the box (once you’ve allowed room for mounting screws and electrical screw terminals and things) for a really long spring strip. A short strip probably wouldn’t be able to flex by 5mm without permanently deforming and even if it could, it would likely result in fatigue failure before long. I experimented with folding a brass strip back and forth in a zig zag to increase its effective length, but it looked like it would take up far too much space and probably still wouldn’t work very well.

So the solution I eventually came up with was to separate the two functions. Make a concertina-style spring from coiled phosphor bronze wire with 5mm travel, and a separate brass strip switch that only has to move by 1mm or less at the bottom of the button travel. I haven’t yet made the switch but I have made the spring. It took me four attempts before I developed a shape I was happy with, using a hole in a block of scrap wood as a test rig. It has more turns than a standard concertina spring because of the large amount of movement relative to its length.

bellpush_spring_1

Here it is installed in a recess chiselled into the back box. It’s in a slightly weird location because of where I intend to put the mounting screws and switch contacts:

bellpush_spring_2

I won’t bother posting a photo with the top installed because it doesn’t look any different on the outside! The action feels pretty nice though.

 

Bellpush Backbox

I had a day off yesterday, so I managed to make a fair bit of progress on the bellpush. I made the captive nut plates in the morning, then in the afternoon and evening I made the backbox. I decided to make it from a solid chunk of seasoned oak for good weather resistance. My first job after planing the top surface smooth was to spot through the locations of  the two top mounting screws the same size as the clearance holes in the top (i.e. 2.5mm). In order to get them exactly the right distance apart, I drilled the first hole and stuck the shank of a spare drill bit in it while I drilled the second one. For this kind of delicate wood drilling I like to use a hand cranked drill because it gives you a much better feel for the amount of pressure and torque you’re applying to the bit than an electric drill does.

bellpushbackbox1

After drilling the pilot holes, I used a screw inserted through the nut plate to locate it in exactly the right position for chiselling it into the surface of the block.

bellpushbackbox2

It’s trickier than it looks to inset them neatly. The second one is less squiffy than the first! I also must have mis-calculated the width of the nut plates because they were supposed to end up flush with the outside of the box, but there is actually about a 1mm step in. At least both the tapped holes are in exactly the right place, which was the most important thing.bellpushbackbox3

 

Next I drilled a small diameter pilot hole in the middle of the button hole and used it to guide a sharp flat boring bit to cut a slightly-oversize recess for the large diameter lip of the button (a forstner bit would probably be better but I haven’t got one of those and it worked well enough). The depth of this recess will set how far the button can be pressed in (minus the thickness of the spring).

bellpushbackbox4

 

 

Finally I opened up the rest of the pilot hole to slightly over the diameter of the bottom part of the button:

bellpushbackbox5

I had to chamfer the bottom of the button a little to get it to slide smoothly in the hole (should really have thought of that when I was turning the sleeve).bellpushbackbox6

Next I sawed the block to the same shape as the top using my new gent’s saw:

bellpushbackbox7

After a bit of planing to smooth off the saw marks and get it down to the exact size, I thought it looked a bit plain:

bellpushbackbox8

So I scribed three parallel lines near the back of the box: bellpushbackbox9

And carved some fake bellows with my Ashley Iles Vee gouge:bellpushbackbox10

 

The plastic film behind the fretwork is a tasteful pale green in daylight:

bellpush_preview

But at night it glows in the dark, which looks really cool if I do say so myself! 😉 (Sadly, it only glows this brightly for a few minutes after charging it up by shining an electric light at it.)bellpushbackbox11

More Captive Nut Plates

 

Following my earlier, unsatisfactory, attempt at making a pair of captive nut plates for the bell push by soldering stainless steel nuts onto thin brass sheet, I bought a set of M2.5 taps and a piece of much thicker (3mm) brass sheet for my second try.

I stained the brass with a permanent marker to make the lines show up more clearly, and marked it out using a steel ruler and scriber under magnification:

nutplates1

 

I also upgraded from a cheap, dull wood-cutting countersink bit to a small good quality (Dormer) HSS three flute metal-cutting countersink. The resulting countersunk holes for the wood screws that will hold the plates to the back box are way smoother, cleaner and more accurate as a result. I tapped the M2.5 holes by hand using Trefolex tapping compound (I bought that small pot at a Model Engineering exhibition about 20 years ago and it’s still half full!).

nutplates2

 

A brief aside about the heads of the visible machine screws/end bolts that hold the top on. This is what the brass bolt heads look like on my antique Lachenal:

nutplates3

 

 

It turns out that head style is called a slotted fillister (I’d not heard that word before I started searching through screw catalogues, and it isn’t in my computer’s spell checking dictionary). I couldn’t find any suitable ready-made M2.5 stainless steel slotted fillister head screws for sale (I much prefer the appearance of slotted heads for this application), so I instead got some cheese-head screws and domed and polished them in the lathe. The next photo shows them before and after modification. Not quite right but I think they look reasonably good.

nutplates4

 

The final photo shows the two finished nut plates. I’m far happier with how these turned out than I was with my first attempt. The brass wood screws are bigger than necessary, but I happened to have a packet of them sitting around and there is enough room to use them. I don’t think there’s much risk of them pulling out of the oak!

nutplates5

Turning Acetal

Tonight I had my first experience of turning acetal (often known by the trademarked name Delrin). It’s an engineering thermoplastic that is relatively expensive but is designed to machine well. I’ve turned other kinds of plastic in the past and usually struggled to get a good accurate smooth finish – they are usually soft and gummy and don’t cut cleanly. Acetal in comparison was a joy to use. With a sharp HSS tool and a high spindle speed, it cuts almost like it’s not there and leaves a lovely smooth finish straight off the tool. You can even take really fine cuts without it rubbing and melting. Lovely!

acetal1

The part I was making was the sleeve for the bottom part of the bell push button. It will act as an electrical insulator to isolate the switch contacts from the metal part of the button. It also needs to slide smoothly into a hole bored in the wooden backing box underneath the contacts.

Because I have read that most types of glue don’t stick well to acetal, I designed the interface between the two parts of the component in a slightly unusual way. The stainless steel pin was slightly flared towards the end (actually caused by deflection from cutting forces when I turned it, but I expected this to happen and deliberately didn’t do anything to prevent or correct it). Also, the hole in the acetal was drilled 0.5mm larger than the diameter of the pin for roughly the bottom 90% of its length. The combination of the two produced a small tapered gap between the two which, when filled with epoxy resin, should act as a mechanical fixing that will prevent them separating even if the glue doesn’t bond to the plastic at all.

acetal2

The finished two-part button:

acetal3