1944 Lithgow

[Peter Laidler]

Just as a metter of interest and in no real relation to this thread except that we're talking bolts, we used to re-use old otherwise serviceable bolts that had been taken from rifles for many reasons. At the Base workshops I am familiar with, we'd wait until we had a load then take them to the fitters/turners shop - just along the path - and he'd mount them in the lathe, set it running and while the bolt was rotating in the chuck, a high speed cross slide mounted small diameter grinder (that they also used to sharpen rotary lawnmower blades and crankshafts etc etc) would skim across the rear of the bolt and take off the old number. Not touching the knob of course. Once the bolts had gone through the phosphating tank and had been de-embrittled (they'd been hardness tested previously of course) they were like new. IN fact, you wouldn't be able to tell them from new!