First real parts!

n9viw said:
Quinn referenced a term I remember from my college days, particularly with programmers: "Yak Shaving." You have to fix this thing so you can have something to fix the other thing, which will also be used to fix this other other thing... it snowballs.
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In the beginning, there's lots of things, tools, experience and stuff that you don't have, that would make things easier. It wasn't that long ago that I went through similar experiences. It takes a while to build up your own personal infrastructure, which makes future projects so much quicker to complete. Eventually you will get there.
 
n9viw said:
Quinn referenced a term I remember from my college days, particularly with programmers: "Yak Shaving." You have to fix this thing so you can have something to fix the other thing, which will also be used to fix this other other thing... it snowballs.
Click to expand...
So let Quinn teach you.......
 
Et voi la, tailstock block. Notch just fits the head on a 1/2" bolt with a cat's hair to spare. The reason the center hole looks offset is because it is- I cut it a little too far to one side. Won't hurt anything, in fact I may enlarge the hole to the other side to match. Or leave it alone, I don't know.

What I do know is while you can do a lot of work when all you have is a 1/2" end mill, it takes a LONG LONG TIME. Good thing I'm not getting paid by the job, I'd be screwed.

Tailstock Block 01.jpgTailstock Block 02.jpg
 
SLK001 said:
If you need to do this again, pin the nut to the backplate instead of welding. Welding adds distortion of unknown quantity that can screw up the register of the chuck.
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Good idea, thank you. Good thing this plate is so thick, there's a lot I can remove to true it.

I was planning to make an 8" faceplate like this, and already have a partially-modified nut and a sorta-round 8" plate, but now I don't know if I'm going to go through with it. Once I get the chuck mounted and get my threading legs under me, I'll look for a 1-1/2x8 or 1-3/4x8 faceplate and rethread it. I'm determined to finish this backplate and mount the chuck, but dang it's a lot of work, and I'm not even done yet!
 
Well, I got it faced, but I probably should have followed a suggestion and soaked it in vinegar to slough the mill scale first. That stuff is brutal. Still have to turn it, but those corners are beating the edges off my bits, I think I'm going to trim it up with the band saw first.

Also, the surface looks like a bloody LP. I tried higher speed and slower feed, but it still comes out looking like this. I ground a few tools with a larger radius to try next time, but wonder what went wrong in the first place. Is this just how HRS machines?

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HRS is gummy metal - expect less than perfect surface finish. Sometimes a shear tool can clean it up to nearly acceptable.

Knock off the edges with a belt sander, or an angle grinder. Good quality HSS should be able to withstand the mill scale if you set the initial cut to cut under the stuff. You have an interrupted cut right now, so expect bits to wear fast, since you can't go deep enough to get under it all.
 
Steel tends to tear when cut so the finish won't be great- matters little for a part like this anyhow
Use a fairly low rpm when working a large diameter piece like that; the surface feet per minute will be high towards the outside
 
On the plus side, the dial indicator showed a rough runout of about 3-5 thousandths. It was bouncing all over because of the grooves, but I thought that was promising.
 
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