Fabricating replacement drawer trim for 1960s boxes
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 12:52 pm
Many of the boxes built in the 1960s had chromed steel accent strips riveted to the front of the drawer pulls. These are often found to be in poor condition (or even missing entirely, if the rivets had failed.) My 1963 KRA-300B was missing one of its drawer accents and a number of the others were pitted or gouged, so I decided to fabricate a replacement set.
I made a drawing using LibreCAD and had Big Blue Saw cut the pattern with waterjet from 5052 aluminum at 0.025" thickness. I ordered 50 units and they cost about $2.10/ea. I then spent some time dressing the edges on a wheel to clean up the burrs. I've been polishing the raw aluminum using Simichrome and a felt polishing tool in a Foredom SR flex shaft motor. To shape the pieces, I made a die by cutting a length of 0.625" ID / 1.000" OD steel tube lengthwise to create a half-round channel, and matching it to a length of 19/32" rod stock. I sandwich the aluminum piece between the two and hammer it to take the shape. I haven't started attaching the pieces to the drawers yet, but I'll be doing that with 3/32" blind rivets.
Here's a photo of the aluminum trim pieces in different stages of production (dressed, polished, and formed):
Also, here's the .dxf CAD file that I created, in case anyone wants to make their own.
--Colin
I made a drawing using LibreCAD and had Big Blue Saw cut the pattern with waterjet from 5052 aluminum at 0.025" thickness. I ordered 50 units and they cost about $2.10/ea. I then spent some time dressing the edges on a wheel to clean up the burrs. I've been polishing the raw aluminum using Simichrome and a felt polishing tool in a Foredom SR flex shaft motor. To shape the pieces, I made a die by cutting a length of 0.625" ID / 1.000" OD steel tube lengthwise to create a half-round channel, and matching it to a length of 19/32" rod stock. I sandwich the aluminum piece between the two and hammer it to take the shape. I haven't started attaching the pieces to the drawers yet, but I'll be doing that with 3/32" blind rivets.
Here's a photo of the aluminum trim pieces in different stages of production (dressed, polished, and formed):
- so_trim_alum.jpg (187.19 KiB) Viewed 1607 times
--Colin