Apologies to George Costanza

So I had some pretty bad shrinkage.

I’ve been working on this batch of Daedalus made from this vintage Sheaffer celluloid for a little while, and, as usual, I had to do everything “the right way” (ugh!), so after getting the parts to rough shape, I did what the pros do and I gave them a little heat treatment to get any (hopefully all!) dimensional instability out before the final machining.

Now, this stuff came to me as sheet goods, with a date code indicating it was made in the 90s, and it was stored in a dry basement for over 20 years, so I had reasonable belief that this would be pretty usable stuff. But nevertheless, because Desiderata means “things which are desired” and one thing I think people want is the knowledge that the guy who made their stuff for them is cautious, thoughtful, and thorough, I figured I’d heat cure them anyway until all movement was gone, just to be safe.

I did it, and the results are…all over the place. Some pieces remained dead straight, and some curved like a banana. Multiple sizes, thus, multiple workflows to balance. At first I thought of selling the ones that are super banana-ed at a discount so you can give them to your enemies, or kinky friends who are into such things. However, after some very careful reprocessing, the kinky ones are now virtually indistinguishable (not without magnification) from the flawlessly straight ones.

I tried to take pictures of the most extreme of the banana-ing, but with camera artifacts, it’s still a little tough to see.

I am still finish polishing them, pending more internal parts (they need a special part unique to them and I don’t have enough), but the ones I’ve made are all outstanding, if I do say so myself. Still, until the story is over, there may yet be mystery to be uncovered at the very end. Perhaps it’ll be more character building; I suppose everyone is due for some unpaid work every now and again. But we’ll just have to see.