Brylcreme - A Little Dab Will Do Ya'

[alfsauve]

With absolutely no apologies to County Chemicals.

Just a reminder that a little dab of very heavy grease is an excellent way to hold small parts together while assembling them.  (Don't actually use Brylcreem obviously)

I had to completely disassemble my CZ 452 and there is a little ball bearing at the end of the sear spring.  It is impossible to hold the bearing in place, slide the sear in and push in the drift pin.  Even if you have four hands this type of assembly is impossible without a little help.  By putting a little bit of very heavy grease, wax or silicon grease on the end of the spring, the ball bearing "sticks" to the spring and the whole assembly becomes a piece of cake.

Just thought some of you could file this away for future use.

[1776 Rebel]

Cool idea. I bet you that there are lots of little tips and tricks in the gunsmithing field that are helpful...

Let me contribute something I tried. I was putting a hammer strut spring on a hammer strut for a Marlin Camp 45 Carbine. Well trying to compress the spring (it's a tough little bugger) and manipulate the strut onto the strut bridge is ridiculously difficult for someone with fat fingers and only two hands.

TIP...get some dental floss and a small nail. Double over the floss (for strength) and thread it thru the spring. Then tie both ends together. So now you have a closed loop of floss going thru the spring. Slide the spring on the strut. Put the nail into the loop and twist it around. By doing this you're going to tighten up the loop and COMPRESS the spring. The strut is going to help by not allowing the spring to snake around. Now it is totally compressed and compact. Make the final adjustments. Then just cut the floss and it uncompresses. Viola !

[Thanos]

That is the same trick I use on my motorcycles when I change exhaust gaskets.

[PegLeg45]

Good idea.......where I used to work we used the same trick to hold o-rings in the ends of hydraulic cylinders when rebuilding them.