[Walt Fricke]

A clever machinist came up with a different way of achieving what dowel pinning does. Basically he bored the holes where the case through bolts pass from one web to the other to hold thin hollow bushings. Sort of like what the factory did for where the #1 case bolts mate. He bored the holes for these bushings with the case halves clamped together, so that he got a perfect register. The trick was how he was able to do this.

He was of the opinion that the standard method of drilling one set of holes, placing transfer punches into these, and then putting on the other case half to poke holes to indicate where to start drilling for the corresponding hole for the pin, was imprecise. By drilling for both sides in one pass he avoided any chance of mis-registering.

He's not in the business any more, but this sure made sense to me, and I wish I could find someone who would do it to another case of mine.

On the other hand, I had another case (also sand cast) shuffle pinned in the usual way, and that seemed to work - case went together as easily as usual, and came apart without the need for too much prodding. Certainly did not need line boring.

But things may be otherwise with mag cases.

Walt Fricke