- Joined
- Jun 6, 2014
- Messages
- 183
I apologize in advance for being vague; I am building a small machine tool which I would really love to do a build journal for as I think others would find it fascinating, but in doing so I would inadvertently be spreading someone else's design around the internet. For anyone who is also into sheetmetal forming, I am building a mechammer from Ben's (bensmetalshaping) plans.
On to the question though: I am turning a piece of 304 ss which will be a cylinder for a sliding piston and needs a very good finish bore for the piston rings to seal against. The bore will be ~1", it is not critical that is 1.000, 1.001, or 0.999 as everything will be a one of matched set and the piston and other parts will be machined to match the bore. Once I have roughed out the bore, what would you recommend for finishing it? Options I have thought of are:
- a spiral fluted chucking reamer: this would probably do the job well, but they are not cheap, and I don't know if I would have any issues reaming a 1" hole from a power/machine standpoint
- an adjustable reamer: I am not concerned about being at an exact diameter, so the adjustability doesn't bother me, but I have never used one. This would be significantly cheaper though, and could be used for a somewhat larger range of bores going forward.
- a flexible hone: I don't know if by running one of these up and down the bore if I could improve the surface finish enough, or how consistent the bore would be, I have never used one.
-running a "dremel" type flap wheel up and down the bore while the lathe is spinning, I don't know how well this would work, how consistent the bore would be, or how much I would really improve a turned finish with this method
-feed the final pass of the boring bar extremely slowly and/pr multiple times and leave it as is
Anyone have thoughts or other ideas?
On to the question though: I am turning a piece of 304 ss which will be a cylinder for a sliding piston and needs a very good finish bore for the piston rings to seal against. The bore will be ~1", it is not critical that is 1.000, 1.001, or 0.999 as everything will be a one of matched set and the piston and other parts will be machined to match the bore. Once I have roughed out the bore, what would you recommend for finishing it? Options I have thought of are:
- a spiral fluted chucking reamer: this would probably do the job well, but they are not cheap, and I don't know if I would have any issues reaming a 1" hole from a power/machine standpoint
- an adjustable reamer: I am not concerned about being at an exact diameter, so the adjustability doesn't bother me, but I have never used one. This would be significantly cheaper though, and could be used for a somewhat larger range of bores going forward.
- a flexible hone: I don't know if by running one of these up and down the bore if I could improve the surface finish enough, or how consistent the bore would be, I have never used one.
-running a "dremel" type flap wheel up and down the bore while the lathe is spinning, I don't know how well this would work, how consistent the bore would be, or how much I would really improve a turned finish with this method
-feed the final pass of the boring bar extremely slowly and/pr multiple times and leave it as is
Anyone have thoughts or other ideas?