Had some time just now to make another clip—doesn’t take that long after making a few of them! This may come in handy for anyone trying to make their own D-Ring clip that looks closer to the elstree one.
I started with .016” aluminum (bought from Hobby Lobby). Don’t worry about the lines in the metal; you can polish all that out at the end, if you wish. I just use WannaWanga’s D-Ring, because it looks really nice and the thickness is better than a few others I’ve seen. It was just too shiny, so I just sanded it with 600 grit sandpaper and 1000 grit to finish it off. This also reveals the warmer looking metal underneath (it’ll tarnish slightly, giving it a nice aged look).
I then cut out a piece, approx. 2 cm wide—this can vary depending on what you want. I cut it at around 2 cm, because as you’ll see later, this will help influence that ‘flare’ that the elstree has, around the edges of the clip where the curved bottom portion of the D-Ring swings against the metal, causing it to curl slightly. Also, cut the piece longer than it needs to be, better longer than too short—just trim it later.
I use a rule as a backing when start to bend the metal around the ring. This provides a nice backing to prevent warping of the metal from the pliers, as well allowing the pliers to easily work around the whole process. Basically, you’ll be holding the ruler and clip in one hand (your thumb on top of the clip to hold it down), while using the pliers in the other hand to clamp down on the clip around the bottom of the ring. You can also kind of gently ’roll’ the pliers toward the D-Ring to help make that area nice and tight.
I use pliers like these, without the ‘teeth’ on them. You don’t want to use anything that will leave excessive marks in the metal.
This is how it looks after the initial work. My pliers aren’t long enough to reach from one end of the clip to the other, so I simple do one side first, rotate it, and then do the other end. You can fine tune things later, but try to ‘pinch’ as close to the ring as you can.
You‘ll see just from the act of doing this by hand with pliers creates imperfections and stuff that may look like ‘weathering’ on the metal. If you’re more gentle with it, there will be fewer marks. If you prefer a pristine look, you can still sand down the surface slightly to get rid of most of it. Notice the flaring of the edges of the clip showing up here; this happened after I formed the metal around the ring, and then I basically ‘freed’ up the ring—it’ll be very tight at first— by flipping it back and forth a few times, until it begins to swing more freely, resulting in the flared edges as well. If you don’t want this flared look, you can make the clip slightly thinner, so that the ring doesn’t push into the metal as much when moved.
Trim to your desired length, and round it off to make it fit the contour of the Graflex bottom! I use a pair of heavy duty scissors to cut it, and then file the edges to make them look nicer.
I didn’t fine tune this one, but as you can see, all of the major work is done! At this point, you can go back into it with the pliers and continue to tighten things up, as well as finishing the surface to your preferred look.
Below is one I had made before that I ended up not using; shorter and inspired by the elstree clip. You can really see the color difference between the aluminum and the Ring here, which is also apparent on the elstree saber!
