Trade Officer
@Ken Belbin said:
Kean Maygib Insulated Pickup Plungers, Item 4550.
I purchased a pack of these from EMGS trade. When received they looked beautifully engineered items for self assembly. Unfortunately I found this impossible. The instructions came on a scrap of paper with no picture, had at least one mistake and so were difficult to follow. I think that I finally understood how the items were supposed to be assembled but found it impossible as the internal dimensions of the insulator were too small to accept any of the components which were supposed to pass through it. I put a question on another forum and received one reply which basically said to bin the items as no-one could ever make them work. I am sure that there others in the society who have experience of this component and perhaps their advice should be sought but from my experience this product has no place in the EMGS Price List.
I have looked at these plungers from the stores and my observations are below
The instructions do leave a lot to be desired. From my experience below they should be assembled in a slightly different order.
On the assemble side the plunger has a small “pip” at the end where the wire is soldered onto. The pip is there to prevent the plunger from coming back out. This makes it a tight push fit until the pip emerges from the other end. When I pushed the the plunger through the plastic bush (with the help of a small vice – fiddly but straight forward) the plunger did slide in the bush but the spring was not strong enough to push the plunger back out.
From that initial experience I adopted the following to assemble the plungers
Open out the bush slightly using a small (~1.3mm) drill.
Shorten the bush slightly to aid soldering the wire on
Place the spring on the the plunger from the end with the pip
Push the plunger through the plastic bush using a small vice if necessary
Solder the wire on
Assemble in the frame
I have assembled several complete and working kits using the method outlined above.
The instructions do leave a lot to be desired and I will rewrite them based on my experience of assembling them. Once I had figured this out they are relatively easy to put together
I will be happy to send you a fully assembled set to replace the ones you purchased. Please get in touch if you want to take me up on the offer
John