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  1. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Frankfurt Main
    Posts
    705
    Country: Germany

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    I go to a jewellery fair sometimes (it is once a year and only for people of the trade), friends usually invite me to join them there once a year. There are some companies selling guns like these, they are very expensive. I look forward to testing them on a few padlocks where I badly want to know what kind of material it is. The S&G 951 for example.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Cleveland, Ohio USA
    Posts
    1,433
    Country: United States

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    Here is a reasonably untarnished plate of phosphor bronze I have for making springs. The S&G comb lock is about 100 years old and I believe clearcoated. It is fairly orange in color, or pink. Really more light orange though. Not sure on the S&G mix either but it seems to be different from the Yale padlocks, as I remember. Oh and my Mersey lock seems to be missing the pin in the bottom??? Doug
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails IMG_0968.jpg   IMG_0970.jpg  

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    1,754
    Country: Wales

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    Wow- guys they've compacted them down to gun size? That's amazing- a company about 20 miles from here had a 'portable' mass spectrometer about the size of a computer printer but thinner. it folds up and down on a cantilever design for analysing material above or below it- it cost £40,000 about 5 years ago. What amazed me is it always showed traces of unusual or even 'mystery' elements, presumably used as additives to give alloys particular characteristics. Didn't matter if it was gold, brass or stainless alloys there always seemed to be a couple of mystery ones show up. Brass for example will show very different traces if it were volume cast, to grades intended as 'free machining' or for folding/bending etc. It is very interesting though- I never got the chance to go back there but would love another visit as I collect meteorites and would love to see what it makes of some of the Nickel-Irons and Pallasites I have

    Doug I probably had way too much over xmas phosphor bronze was just a thought on these. If you're convinced it's something else I'm happy with that- if you get to test it I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out far weirder than expected and gives you another puzzle to investigate I forgot to mention lever springs- I had a load of phosphor bronze strip and always used to save it from any old levers- especially old Chubb 3G114's.

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