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Tiffen Arms to Pro Socket Blocks


Ryan Toussieng

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Victor, I just went to a shop local to me here in CT. I'm sure any shop could do it.

 

Alec, I had a long discussion with the machinist about any weakening that might occur. He assured me there was so little that needed to be taken off, the change in strength would be essentially zero.

 

In fact, if there's concerns about strength, you can equally compromise the male pin if you try to sand it down yourself and it's not done evenly.

 

In both cases, the actual measurable compromise that's occurred is negligible. I vote for modifying the female end, just in case you ever need to use any other arm.

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On the flip side, 10 years ago when I bought my PRO arm I was told I would probably "need" to buy a pro socket block for the model 2 vest I used.

 

So I did.

 

Truth be told, the pro arm worked fine on that model2 vest's socket block.

 

Go figure.

 

Rich

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Jerry,

 

Fair enough…. My point was that there is no one trying to sabotoige anyone else here (so no justification for conspiracey theories). It made sense to me that tolerances were not as refined back in the beginging so I decided to opt for throwing the company that no longer exists under the bus rather than point fingers at the current reigning chanmpions.

 

Afton, I agree it is a trivial amount; I was just cautioning to be careful with Titanium (versus Steel and Aluminum). If you can file Titanium too, please state so as I know that it is strong in certain regards, yet brtittle.

 

Oh, and I would also add that I would not be the least bit surprised if the socket block PRO measured was pre-1986 as it likely was an arm that belonged to George Paddock, Chris Haarhoff, Dave Emmerichs or one of those original folks who had already been at the game a long time before they built the PRO arm (and if you recall CP was not selling indiviudal parts to these guys then).

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Afton, I agree it is a trivial amount; I was just cautioning to be careful with Titanium (versus Steel and Aluminum). If you can file Titanium too, please state so as I know that it is strong in certain regards, yet brtittle.

 

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't consider going at this myself with a file by any means, but there exist readily available tools that will scratch titanium. $60 was well worth it to know it was done with the right tools by professionals. Also, my machinist seemed much more eager to machine the titanium socket block than he was to machine the hardened steel pin block. I can only guess this had something to do with the heat generated by the CNC process - and the machinist not wanting to remove the hardness from the block. This should be something seriously considered if anybody is going to try this themselves with power tools. Too much heat will permanently soften the steel block, requiring it to undergo the hardening process again.

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Victor, Jack didn't change the prints on the socket block.

 

Back when I bought my 3A arm the socket block was .008 ( keep in mind a human hair is roughly .003 to .004, so we're not talking about a whole hell of a lot extra metal here) over the size of the PRO female socket block. I took some 220 grit cloth to the boss on the male socket block to get it to the PRO socket block ID. When I got it so it fit very snugly I hit it with some 600 grit cloth for the final passes to clean up any marks left by the heavier grit. Took about ten minutes. Cut the cloth in a 1" x 12" strip wrap it around the boss on the male socket block and pull it back and forth continuously in a clockwise fashion until you have gone 360 degrees, then go back the other way 360 degrees (i know, there are many jokes in here for Ron to capitalize on). We do this at the shop, (at least when we were in Valencia) for customers who bought our vest and still had Tiffen arms. Keep a dial vermeer caliper nearby when doing this and test the boss frequently while sanding so you know when you are getting close to matching the ID of the PRO female socket block. When the two parts almost mate ditch the calipers and take a couple more passes with the sandpaper and try another test fit or two, until you get the fit you desire.

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