Bogen CHB-20A Rebuild

[physics]

Hi Guys

Frankly, I've never seen anyone have so much trouble installing eyelets.

Indeed, it's struck me that this seems like an abnormal amount of trouble I'm going through. Especially given that everyone else

As stated in my posts above and by Keystone:
A proper hole size for the eyelet is very important.
Proper alignment of the staking tool with the eyelet is paramount.

Thanks for re-affirming alignment, I'll focus on eliminating that as an issue. Most of my tests (recorded or otherwise) have been done without a board to avoid having to go through a bunch of fiberglass stock and because I didn't get any better results with the board than I did without the board, but if hole size is that important maybe not having the board is screwing with things. I'll start trying more with an actual board. Suppose I could use it as a breadboard of sorts after with all the eyelets it's gonna have.

The alignment of the eyelet with the tool is a bit of you moving the card into place and the tool participating - but mostly it is you. It comes down to a little bit of practice and then it is second-nature.

Note that Keystone says to use "light pressure".

Think I'm gonna have to drill a bunch of holes and try this out. I've tried in the past without luck, maybe there was a feel thing or something I was missing. The "light pressure" thing tips me off that something is wrong with what I'm doing or my setup. I wouldn't call the amount of pressure I've needed to apply "light", and I assume that's because instead of just rolling the eyelet walls I'm causing them to deform as mentioned before.

I just had a look at how a #44 eyelet sits on the 1715 tool. The eyelet sits on the cone about 1mm or so up from the circular groove. The eyelet sits similarly on the tool I had made, but the cone is taller and the groove is a touch wider. Using either one just by hand makes a perfect roll in a 1/8" hole.

I checked, and my tools are about the same. I also tried to use them for hand-swaging with a small steel block as a hammer and that well with nice swages. The custom tool is harder to do the rotating motion with close to the board due to having a wider face, but I don't think that matters.

One other issue would be the card thickness. I use 1/16" stock. There are longer eyelets for thicker material and shorter ones for thinner. There seems to be some missing information regarding how much of the eyelet shank should protrude through the material? I thought there used to be some.

I'm using 1/16" as well. I think I know the info you're talking about, I remember seeing something related to that when I was choosing which eyelets to get.

You mention your Cambion press - is it just a brand of arbor press?  A few decades ago, one of the suppliers in Toronto carried Manu-Press, which was a whole line including a press that did not look anywhere near as sturdy as the arbor press you have, plus a bunch of dies and holders. It seemed more suited to pressing cheese

It's the terminal swaging press that Cambion Electronics sells for swaging their eyelets, turrets, etc. I think Midland Ross also sold it at some point judging from ebay listings. I don't know much more other than it's cast iron and uses a cam and lever for mechanical advantage instead of the rack and gear that an arbor press does. I think this is the page for it: http://www.cambion.com/terminal_swager.aspx. It feels pretty sturdy, though would benefit from being bolted to my workbench.

Thanks for your input!