Dropped my Packard and knocked the piston off

[williaty]

Just as I was finally getting all the fiddling and restoration done to get my Packard shutter working the way I wanted, I managed to drop the damned thing while it was attached to the lens board (thankfully, the lens was not attached!). It landed right on the piston and knocked it off, popping out the two copper rivets that held the piston to the shutter case. Does anyone have any bright ideas for repairing this?

[William Whitaker]

www.packardshutter.com
The new owner is in South Bend, IN, so not all that far from you.
Better to repair than to replace, IMO. But you have the option....

[Pfsor]

Couldn't it be just riveted back where it was?

[Jim Galli]

If it was me, I would force the piston assy back over what is left protruding of the original rivets, then clean up fresh metal and with some solder paste to facilitate, solder it back in place. Some modern adhesives like JB weld or even just a good epoxy would likely work well enough also. The original mounting was more robust than the pressures inherent in the function required. It was clean and simple and cheap. It doesn't need to be as strong as original to do it's function.

[DrTang]

I've run across some that seemed to have been epoxied back on