Look --> Replica Lafette Strap Dimensions
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 3:34 pm
A fellow in Germany was looking for dimensions on lafette 42 straps, so I made these pics for him and thought you guys might also want to see them. The dimensions might be just a tiny bit off, but not more than a few millimeters.
I took some 3/16" dia music wire (high carbon steel) fond at Ace Hardware, heated and bent them with a vice and oxy-acetylene torch into the triangles, and gas welded the ends. The buckles were made with the appropriate size low carbon steel rod, and sheetmetal for the buckle rollers cold formed into the cylindrical shapes with using hammers over a piece of the music wire used as an anvil of sorts. The snap rings can be found at Ace Hardware stores. I not, then they can be ordered. They are zinc plated so you have to sand off the zinc and dip them in Brownell's Oxpho gun bluing acid to make them dull grey to match the other steel parts, and some reshaping can be done cold to shape them into a shape more like the German original ones. The leather is about $45 worth of "burgundy" latigo, from Tandy Leather store, cut with a razor knife to the proper dimensions. The line indentations along the endes of the leather are made with a line scribing tool that is nothing more than a dulled knife edge alongside an edge guiding extension of metal. Leather punches are used for the holes and some modified leather lettering punch tools are used to make the "fsu 1942" waffenamt stamp. I later found out that the fsu letter code was from a different factory than my lafette manufacturer. Oh well. The dimensions came from those supplied from other lafette owners and auction descriptions of original straps, and are pretty close. The advantage of making your own straps is that you don't have to settle for incorrect postwar Yugoslavian strap designs that are noticable as incorrect from a distance.
I took some 3/16" dia music wire (high carbon steel) fond at Ace Hardware, heated and bent them with a vice and oxy-acetylene torch into the triangles, and gas welded the ends. The buckles were made with the appropriate size low carbon steel rod, and sheetmetal for the buckle rollers cold formed into the cylindrical shapes with using hammers over a piece of the music wire used as an anvil of sorts. The snap rings can be found at Ace Hardware stores. I not, then they can be ordered. They are zinc plated so you have to sand off the zinc and dip them in Brownell's Oxpho gun bluing acid to make them dull grey to match the other steel parts, and some reshaping can be done cold to shape them into a shape more like the German original ones. The leather is about $45 worth of "burgundy" latigo, from Tandy Leather store, cut with a razor knife to the proper dimensions. The line indentations along the endes of the leather are made with a line scribing tool that is nothing more than a dulled knife edge alongside an edge guiding extension of metal. Leather punches are used for the holes and some modified leather lettering punch tools are used to make the "fsu 1942" waffenamt stamp. I later found out that the fsu letter code was from a different factory than my lafette manufacturer. Oh well. The dimensions came from those supplied from other lafette owners and auction descriptions of original straps, and are pretty close. The advantage of making your own straps is that you don't have to settle for incorrect postwar Yugoslavian strap designs that are noticable as incorrect from a distance.
Better make a set of pads,too. ---bil