286 Rivets, Part 1

In my opinion, this portion of the project has been the most frustrating part (and I hesitate to add the words, "so far"). The Tray Assemblies ("dividers") in the Magazine Assembly ("carriage") were quite nasty, and in my opinion, had to be refurbished.

There are 26 total Tray Assemblies in a 1452, consisting of two different types: Those with Keepers (qty 13), and those without (qty 13). Other than these keepers, there is absolutely no difference between the metal pieces which make-up the actual Tray Assemblies. But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Here's a shot of the "26/27" Tray Assembly, which was one of "better-than-average" units in terms of overall condition. Note the hollow rivet:

Here's a couple pictures showing the typical condition of all of the Keeper Assemblies:

Once again, note the hollow rivets.

Knowing I had to clean-up the Keepers, I carefully drilled them out:

 

And saved the back-up washers and what remained of the original rivets (for sizing-up new rivets).

Here's where things took a nasty turn for the worse:

Once all of the Keepers had been removed, I tried gently washing the Tray Assemblies in mild soapy water. Heck, I even used "Dawn" dishwashing detergent, thinking that because it's safe enough to use on baby ducklings, it has to be mild enough for this!

Turns out I was wrong, as my lacquer paint of 60+ years had other ideas, and even with a very soft cleaning, frequently I came away with this:

Yes, the paint actually peeled right off, with water and dish detergent! Once I got over being mad about this, I saved some of the paint "peelings" in a 3 gallon bucket for my painter:

Now I had to make a decision: Drill-out the rivets and have the Tray Assembly "halves" (or "clams" as I called them) prepped and repainted correctly, or leave the rivets in-place, and have the assemblies re-painted "as-is". Meaning the rivets would be covered in paint....

Fortunately my wife was the Voice of Reason once again when she said, "If you don't do it now, and if it isn't "Done Right", are you going to regret it later?"

'Nuff said!

So I took them all apart, boxed them up, and took them to my painter.

While waiting for the "clams" to be painted I spent a considerable amount of time trying to locate the same "hollow" rivets that Rockola used back in the day, but I was unsuccessful.

However, I managed to find what I feel is an acceptable alternative, and I'll go into that in the next post.