Redding Powder scale Salvage and Repair

Note before we start-- This product could be produced without the copy work seen below and work just as well. It would only require a small amount of effort to model these parts in clay without the duplicate parts to work with. The powder pan is 2 1/4 in. wide and 3 in. to the spout and 3/4 in. high and the bottom should be flat so it can be set on a table. The base ballast pan is 1 1/8 inches wide and 3/8 in tall.  To make the cradle pan (Where you see the Phillips heads of the screw after forming your powder pan press it into the clay to give it a matched shape.  Some helpful principles were explained in the part of this blog on the Pacific powder scale so if you will look there it is listed only a few posts back. The repairing of the Redding however will involve some key differences. First the Pacific was complete but missing the counter balances. This Redding is missing the powder pan and the bottom pan support and counter weight and the support wire. If the home construction parts are to heavy then the scale will not work as it should. so as long as they are light the differences can be added as ballast. This brings in the main problems how to produce parts that will be strong and functional and yet light enough to not tilt the scale the wrong way. This may require a nonmetal solution and there is a lot of options available. Fiber glass might come to mind but the parts are so small that the rest of the resin and hardener would lay around unused. The glass cloth might be to thick for the job.

“Brother, brother, go find your brother” (Copying one product to make another). In an emergency using one product to copy a form or shape of another will add additional tools without the sacrifice of the original part or equipment. A liquid formed part is a simple solution to have a near copy of the needed part. Epoxies with a fiber material should do without the large investment and the leftovers of a quart of fiberglass. Casting these metal parts into a plastic is hard because they are so thin but making a single sided shape is easy with a little modeling clay. I first forced a large quantity of clay in the powder pan and pressed it in firmly to get rid of all the wrinkle lines I could (but there were still some). I rolled out some of the clay flat and then removed the clay from the powder tray which slightly deformed it. I then spent some time rubbing out any remaining wrinkles with a spoon. The part was slightly deformed but this was OK as I had the general shape and no wrinkles in the clay. Sprinkling on a little baking flower as a release agent I then pressed the powder pan back into the clay. This time I could remove the tray without having it stick and there were no wrinkles. An old paint brush could be used to remove the flower. Next I mixed the epoxy and smeared it on the clay form liberally and taking a paper napkin I made the first layer. Still having some epoxy left I put on another layer of paper napkin. This was about all that could be done within reason and allowed to harden for 24 hrs.

 It was an OK job but I wished I had added another two more layers of epoxy and napkin before I had removed it from the clay but I still can do that. There were two air bubbles which will not be hard to fill. A single piece of  a light woven cloth might have been better then the napkin but as it is it is more than strong enough to do the job and the paper napkin was very responsive to form in the wet glue.

 There are two less complicated parts in the base above that each could be duplicated the same way. Note there are weights in the base when you remove the screw they must be saved and replaced. 

 An aluminum chain link fence tie wire could be used to make the cradle wire and small chunks of steel tie wire could be cut and weighed until the scale zeros out. These pieces will be put in the new base you are producing when you are finished (for ballast). If you are gluing the base then the extra glue will overweight the scale so leave out some of the counter weights and glue on the bottom. When it is dry drill a small hole in the lower cavity just big enough to put the weight in BUT DO NOT PUT THE WEIGHTS IN. Dump them in the new powder pan and zero out the scale. When 1/10 grain underweight put them in the whole and with a toothpick use a small drop of glue to seal the hole. You can add extra smears of glue until you reach zero and you can use sandpaper to remove weight.  Your Redding scale will now work as good as if it were new. Richard W Norman 

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