Fellow Shadow Watchers, As most will know, a traditional and very satisfactory method of securing a gnomon to the plate is by tapered pins driven through holes in the gnomon arranged so that the taper pulls the plate and gnomon firmly together with a powerful wedge action.
Stainless steel taper pins are ASTONISHINGLY expensive however, even at trade prices (in the UK) e.g. 1/8" diameter (thick end) x 1 3/4" long are £78.08 per 100 plus VAT! That's £0.91 pence EACH! I've recently re-stocked with four sizes 5/64" x 3/4", 1/8" x 1 3/4", 3/16" x 1 3/4" and 1/4" x x 2" which means that I have enough stainless taper pins to last my remaining years many times over. As a service to the dialling community I'll be happy to supply these in twos and threes at cost price plus a few pence to cover postage etc. Best Wishes Tony Moss P.S. I've recently had to remove a spelling mistake (not mine) from a dial plate by placing an invisible 'patch' in place of the parish name for re-engraving. As previously, JPEGs have been made of the various stages of this unusual job and I will be posting them to my JPEG sub-list next week. If you are on my sub-list but don't want to receive these images please let me know asap. If any new member wants their name added to the list let me know in good time.