It’s the small things that can give the greatest satisfaction

Today I finally had a go at making this rear sight adjusting screw for a Haenel 28:

The missing screw from the pistol was one of those irritating things I just kept putting it off.  Normally I would be able to find a suitable spare like this in one of my boxes of bits accumulated over the years, but although I did manage to find a couple of contenders, neither had the right dimensions or thread.  Unsurprisingly no one seemed to sell them, and the nearest I could find were for Diana sights, which most probably also had the wrong thread, and at £15 each it was a risk I was not prepared to take.  So I knew I had to make one at some stage. So I decided today was the day.

As an amateur I always make a plan of action, even for the simplest of things, as I know from bitter experience that if you get the sequence of steps wrong you can back yourself into a machining corner with no option but to start over again.  This was my roughed out plan of action, starting from a piece of round mild steel bar.  I checked the thread on the Haenel sight and as near as makes no difference it was 5BA. 

Amazingly everything went without a hitch.  I have just blackened the screw with heat and oil, and fitted it to the gun. It looks just the part, and one more job off my to-do list. A humble little item but very satisfying to have sorted it out..