2014 POTD Thread Archive

[Rapscallion]

Turned an old tripod into some collapsable walking sticks.

............
finished

View attachment 75729

Nice finished product Toolmaster. Are these meant for the blind? They look handy that way.

 

[churchjw]

Very cool project. Can you post some pictures of your setup for cutting them out.

My project of the day was forming 5 little fan blades for the model engine I am building. The blanks were machined from .032 brass.View attachment 75484View attachment 75485View attachment 75486View attachment 75487

 

[TOOLMASTER]

Nice finished product Toolmaster. Are these meant for the blind? They look handy that way.

cross country walking/hiking

 

[Rapscallion]

cross country walking/hiking

Nice. I walk about 5 to 10 km on most days. Never felt the need for a stick though. But I wouldn't mind a collapsible one as a weapon against possible scoundrels or vicious stray dogs.

 

[Rapscallion]

After scraping a woodruff key three times (no kidding three times), a simple woodruff key. I gave up on it and decided to move on to something else in the afternoon (I was really peeved and thought I was going to get nothing done today).

So, I ended up turning out a worn bush for the Colchester Triumph shaft and sleeving it with a teflon coated bush. If I scraped that I would have been livid but, I finally did something right and obtained a very nice press fit for the reliner bush.

Woodruff shmoodruff, tomorrow's another day.

 

[Dataporter]

Repaired Polaris Pool Sweep Backup Valve

I have a Polaris Pool Sweep that does a pretty good job of cleaning my swimming pool daily. In the middle of the hose there is a back up valve that is designed to pull the Pool Sweep backwards for about 30 seconds every 5 minutes. That way if the Polaris gets stuck somewhere, it will free itself and not spend the whole cycle in one spot. I noticed my Polaris was getting stuck and not backing up. The backup valve has an impeller in it that drives a set of gears that function as a clock that periodically changes a valve to divert the water from the pump that drives the sweep. The parts for these guys are not inexpensive... The cheapest I could find this valve online was $46, if I went to the local pool store they are more like $65-75. So I opened it up and discovered that the bearing on one end of the impeller shaft was shot. It was not that old and I think from the factory, one side of the cover was not snapped completely on, causing the bearing to prematurely fail. The rest of the unit was in great shape. The photo below shows the messed up bearing.



Turns out the factory pressed a little nylon or delrin bearing in there. So I made a replacement bearing from 1/4" bearing bronze. The OD of the bushing is like .211" (5.5mm?) and the shaft is 1/8" and the overall length is .173" .



Finished results shown below. Probably took less than a half an hour and it works great!!!



I would much rather fix something like this when I can then throw it away and buy a new one!

 

[tertiaryjim]

Rapscallion
I've had some keyways in which the broach just wanted to lay over and get a big bite.
Not to big a problem if you catch it right away but once started it's a pain to correct.
Sometimes I can trace the fault to my poor setup but there have been times when I can't find the fault and it wants to do the same on each pass.

- - - Updated - - -

Dataporter
You made a part that saved 50 bucks?
I thought we were supposed to spend 50 bucks to make a 5 dollar part.
Whats happening to the hobby these days?

 

[Dataporter]

Dataporter
You made a part that saved 50 bucks?
I thought we were supposed to spend 50 bucks to make a 5 dollar part.
Whats happening to the hobby these days?

My wife made a similar comment. If you spend enough 50s you get a mulligan.

 

[cathead]

Steady rest improvements

I reworked my steady rest and made it more easily adjustable. Here's the old version and
the new reworked version.

 

[Rapscallion]

Hi Tertiaryjim, I know you can get a similar effect when cutting keyways with a slot drill. The cutting forces tend to gouge at the ends or plunge point of the slot, and drive the cutter off center a bit too. Anyway my key-ways where not the problem in this case as they were the woodruff type and the machining methods very different. It's the woodruff keys that gave me uphill. Not because they are difficult to make but, because I kept making silly mistakes. Perhaps because I was too b blasé about a simple task. It was just one of those days but I'm off to the workshop in a few minutes for a better one. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Looking good Cathead. Makes me want to get stuck in and make steadies for my lil 3-in-1.