DIY Cone Bolts

[Adrian Harris]

I spent a little while recently thinking of the cone nuts on the Panzer III and if there was anyway to making them myself.

As I couldn't think of a way to thread and turn the nuts, I wondered about cone headed bolts.

This is the first attempt:

Step One.

Buy a bunch of cheap M3 solid brass screws from Ebay:

CSK ones happened to be cheapest, and as you will see next, it doesn't matter one jot that they're CSK

[Adrian Harris]

Step Two.

Off With His Head

[Adrian Harris]

Step Three:

Silver solder on a dome nut:

Taking Stephen's dimensions for the full size dome nuts, even full nuts wouldn't give enough material to create the cone, so I thought I'd give these a go.

[Adrian Harris]

Step Four.

Turn down the dome nut to get a cone head:

I haven't tried these on for size yet but they look the part once cleaned up.

Hopefully, M4 or M5 should be a suitable size for the larger ones, plus if I leave a little of the original flats on the dome nut, I can use these on the gun tube.

Adrian.

[David Da Costa]

Adrian, great idea!!

Like you I spent last week thinking about how to make these, even with my CNC lathe the prospect of making 89 of them with the methods I thought of was daunting!

I think this way is doable.

David