Erector set part number 'JO' crosshead guide bars

I had two sets at one time , my father's set was real neat in a wooden box , had large wheels about 4" with neat spooked rims. The metal building pieces and motor were Hugh compared to the set I got for Xmas some 55 years ago. It's stored in my treasure chest of toys in my attic along with a bunch of toys cap guns , wwwest belt buckle derenger pistol that shoots, James bond Austin Martin with ejector seat, flip tags in original box.
YUPP my pops was stolen and sold by an sob my niece is with even tried stealing my mom's house. Spent many lonely winter days and nights building all kinds of rigs with my erector set .
YUPP my parents did alright for us with what they had.
 
OK, update to the string. I took Dave’s (chips&more) idea and made some fixturing to notch the blanks before folding them up. In summary, no question the way to do the job! Thanks for the tip Dave. Perfect example of what makes this forum great; no one has all of the best ideas, but collectively we come up with great solutions!

I started by making a set up piece of sheet metal with a 45 degree angle cut on a side. Idea was to have a quick set up jig for aligning a part properly in the notcher. Otherwise, my miter joints would be skewed. Set a 30 & 15 degree angle gauge block against the notcher blade and cut away.

Next step was making a master part for setting up the job on the notcher. Cut a blank to size and scribed the locations of the notches on the blank using the previously made punch guide. Scribed a 2nd line at depth using a calipers. Dropped the notcher blades onto the blank and adjusted the angle to a 45 using gauge blocks. Then cut the notch. Repeated on the second notch.

Next step was making a fence for aligning blanks to the notcher blades and indicate the positons for the notches. Used a piece of 20-gauge sheet metal for the fence. Punched a couple of ¼” holes for cap screws for clamping to the notcher. Made a couple of nuts from ½” wide aluminum which slip through the slots in the table of the notcher. Set the master part in place with the notcher blades down. Shoved the blank notch hard to the bottom of the notcher blades and aligned the blank with the 45 deg. sheet metal guide. Set the fence up against the blank and tightened the clamp screws. Marked the ends of the blank on the fence. The fence was removed and the transferred marks were scribed into the fence. These scribed lines will be used for positioning the blanks side to side for notching.

Once things are set up it goes pretty quickly. Set the blank up against the fence and slide the end to align with one of the registration marks on the fence. Notch away, slide to the other registration mark and repeat. Flip the part over so the notching is located off the same end of the blank and notch that side.

Thanks again to chips&more for the idea to pre-notch the parts. Kind of bragging now, but I threw two sets of (2) parts on eBay last week and had bidders at $59, $60 and $61. Made second chance offers to the non-winners who both took the offer. I can easily make 30 of these an hour when things are set up. Not that there’s a market for 1000 of them, but a large enough market to raise some cash for a couple of Interapid dial test indicators or something similar.

Bruce

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