Paul, I've made a new pin from what I thought was silver steel, and hardened it as much as I could, but I was surprised to find that the original pin was file-hard: somewhere near 64 Rockwell C. So, not only is the new pin not as pretty as the genuine one, it is also not nearly as hard. The genuine one was made from a fully hardenable alloy and hardened as much as possible, and I think that was because the design must have made that necessary. I'll post the old and new pins back to you: please try it and see, firstly, whether it works properly. You might also post some more pictures of the pins, the installation, and the tests. If it doesn't work, we'll have to develop a revised approach, depending on what happens.
Because it is obviously going to wear faster than the original, I made it 0.014" longer than the worn one, rather than 0.012".
