I’m creating a key holder and I have been brainstorming how to attach/secure a .223 casing to my project that would sustain the weight of keys. Below is my project picture and the .223 casing. I reckoned that I could tilt the wood at the top with some 1/4" spacers and clamp it down to allow the tooling to clear out a round pocket which would allow me to insert a dowel or ?? on an angle to hold the shell casing. The hole in the shell is about 0.222", I’m not sure if a dowel that size would be strong enough.? Another thought was to fill the casing with hot glue and attach it with a screw from behind??
If you are worried about a dowel not being strong enough you could always run a bolt through the board into the shell. You’d just have to make an extra recess for the head of the bolt.
Well if you never want to take it apart epoxy would work, hot glue would probably let you unscrew the shell from the bolt. If the board is only a 1/2" thick you might be better off with just some threaded rod, as you wouldn’t need to worry about the head of the bolt then. I’ve used 3/16" carriage bolts in the past for key hangers and they’ve never had any troubles holding my keys.
How about cutting a piece of dowel rod long enough to go all the way in the shell casing plus the length you need to insert it into the board. Fill you shell casing about a 1/4 full with wood glue. Insert the dowel and let it setup then assemble.
I have made key chains out of spent brass casings. I used many different things to attach the key ring holder to the brass. What worked great for me was the two part fast setting epoxy like the one in the dual syringe 5 minute epoxy. you could use the hanger bolts as pictured above or I would use the hanger bolt that has the wood screw thread on one end and a 1/4 thread on the other end. This would make assembly and disassembly very easy. You could also use a T-nut on the back side of your project
