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I thought you all might enjoy the repair job someone did on the two front door strikes. It took me a second to figure out what I was looking at, but someone had carefully cut a replacement from a piece of aluminum with a band saw.

It worked well, it did not cause a problem closing or opening the passenger door. The driver's door mechanism did not work as the catch had been used so many time the very end had wore off.

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What year? If style the insert was used wonder if the Nylon insert was unavailable, or if the guy was more of an "I can do that type" or just had more aluminum & time than money. It is a pretty neat job though and maybe more durable than Nylon.

man thats pretty neat. thanks for sharing!

Probably cut section from a gear.

They are off of a 54 Cavelier HH56 and look very hand made. They seamed to work pretty good but I wonder if they may have a slightly harsher sound when in use than the plastic ones.

The person who owned the car was definitely a do it yourselfer or knew a buddy who could "fix it". The sway bar had been welded together and secured to one side with a questionable method using some small screws and what looked to be Erector Set parts.

Here are a couple of pictures of part I made for my 1953 Henney Jr when I drove it every day to work. I had a spare carburetor but it was missing this one part. So I made it from the original. It lost a little detail in the lettering but it's mating surface was a lot flatter than the original. The material I used was kirksite which is about 99% zinc. fairly close to the die cast material used in the actual part. I have about a hour and a half total in labor.

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Nice. Regular sandcasting? Has anyone tried the high temp pourable silicone materials that are supposed to be good to zinc temp? Been debating on an item whether sand or biting the bullet and buying silicone.

was made by sand-casting using jeweler's sand, finer grained sand than whats used mostly. The Cope and drag is about 3 X 5 inches sizewise. I have also done several things using the lost wax process. I would made a reusable mold to make the wax patterns. Then I would use a centrifugal casting machine. To throw the molten metal into the mold, after the wax was burned out of the mold. Used this for Gold and Silver items.

Very nice work!!! Superb!

That looks great Don, me and a buddy have been wondering what casting some zinc stuff would be like. We were thinking about trying the silicone method, but as with a lot of things time gets in the way.

Is it fairly durable? What is "pot metal", or the material that our hood ornaments and such made from?