Shaping Brake Levers

[Lindsay G]

I've always had some difficulty in filing tapered brake levers to shape, particularly Caledonian Railway levers with the pronounced square shape at the pivot. This afternoon I had a lightbulb moment and tried soldering a length of fret offcut at right angles to a length of spare brass then got filing. Hey presto, making the levers is suddenly a walk in the park :

Hardly rocket science, in fact blindingly obvious, so why didn't I think of it a decade ago?

Lindsay

[Guy Rixon]

Brilliant. Much more elegant than most rocket science, which tends to be compromises held together by kludges.

You've probably nerfed some sales at Wizard Models though.

[PeteT]

Thanks for sharing! Simple & effective - there are all sorts of fiddly bits of metal to be shaped or cleaned which this looks useful for.

[John Palmer]

Excellent idea. I can see this being used to form things like brake rods with dumbbell ends and all sorts of ironmongery on signals and ground connections. Being able to see both edges of a narrow component at the same time is a big plus whilst you are forming it to shape.

No doubt you could solder together a number of blanks to be filed to shape simultaneously, then separate them on the cooker hot plate.

Adding this one to the document in which I keep a note of useful techniques.