MTFCA Forum

Aside from auctions and swap meets, I do not find shopping the least bit entertaining. My ideal shopping experience goes as follows: 1 Enter the store; 2 Easily find the product which is where it obviously should be; 3 Pay for it; 4 Get the heck out.

Unfortunately, except for food and some household products, I find myself increasingly resorting to an online search for something that is no longer sold locally. Unlike Duke Wayne, I am not a good searcher. Too often I find: 1 The product is sold only in impractically large and grotesquely expensive quantities; or 2 a reasonable amount of said product comes with a shipping cost several times its value.

That brings me to the quandary at hand. I would like to find some ½" phenolic or similar product to make the base for a magneto contact button. I need to replace a broken one. Obviously making a small object like this won't take very much material. Even if I made a dozen it wouldn't take very much material. I hope somebody who is a better searcher than I am can direct me to a source of small amounts. Ideal would be within an hour's drive of here for pickup, but even with inexpensive shipping would be good.

From McMaster Carr

https://www.mcmaster.com/phenolic/econo ... nd-strips/

Steve,
I have a chunk of 1/2" thick black phenolic left over from a project. How big a piece do you need?
Best regards.
Brian Eliason

Some older electrical panels, fuse boxes and electrical equipment have pieces of insulating strips in them that are pretty tough stuff. They would be just right in your application. Working as a maintenance mechanic for many years we saw all kinds of good items on broken equipment that’s great for tinkering and using for repairs. Problem was that you couldn’t save them all! I brought home to much and have been thinning it down for a while. And the electrical panels I threw away.

How about a fiber timing gear?

Steve, I have the contact blocks. Already made up from the Ford print. I'll send you one.

How about a fiber timing gear?

That is brilliant!

Randall, thanks, but I have some on the way.

Your intro tells me that we went to the same shopping school. I am not
a shopper. I am a buyer. Get in, get out, .... "commando shopping". Kick
in the doors, take no prisoners, mission accomplished, beat feet back to camp.
Nothing is more annoying than hours spent spinning my wheels, getting zero
traction.

On Monday, I was approaching the completion of the new roof on my back
shop. 19 squares. Architectural shingles reluctantly used, so I can walk on
it in my old age. But the open rafters and no attic space meant a continuous
ridge vent, and code/common sense said commercially available ridge vent
products just weren't going to do it. A 16" cap, made of raw galvanized steel
(for moss kill) had to be custom rolled. Standoffs to carry the cap 1.5" off the
shingle surface seemed to be impossible to find through any vendor. So, after
hours of driving and talking, I gave up, bought 3/8" pipe, matching washers,
jigged up a cutting apparatus, made 80 pieces, and welded then into spools,
much like the Model T transmission spools, and got the job done. What I thought
should be a no brainer took 3 days of searching, brainstorming, fabricating, and
finally installation.

Glad you found an answer here.