A second start for my "White Swan" reefers

[sailormatlac]

Matt, Bear, thank you very much to you also!

Matt, there was another background for using brass for these door lock mechanisms.
My first idea was to use 3D-printing technology for these door look mechanism and I asked a professional model builder for printing - 10 pieces. However that would be a lot of money because he works on a very expensive printer with a very fine printing resolution. So we decided to print one piece only and after to use this as master for the brass mold. Unfortunately there were a lot of problems with the fine structures until he received a usable result. At end he modified the printing file some times, printed three or four new masters until we have obtained the brass parts in a good quality.
However I was very lucky with decision for using brass as material because the long shaft does not sit directly on door wings but the shaft is mounted with a bit distance away from backside. With this the parts are many more sturdy as plastic and this should be an advantage.
Unfortunately I had to strengthen the thickness of shaft from wished and well looking and 0.4 mm diameter (0.015") to 0.5 mm (0.02") and so I have relative thick shafts now. However nobody wanted to make attempts using this finer dimension - not realizable!

I understand the economics behind professional printing. That was the best decision. I wouldn't trust printed material strenght for such a delicate part.

A 9mm (real life) discrepancies seems to be quite acceptable!

Matt