I didn't do all this today, I've been working on it for about a week.
It is a gizmo to position a color index chip for my product testing client.
The arm has to adjust up and down, as well as rotate out of the way. The arm is about 36" long.
I did it the hard way, of course. I'm a machinist. I went to great effort to make the axles and other thing, instead of just using a bolt. Actually, there was a reason. The pocket axle helps to maintain clearance for the square rod to move smoothly.
The height adjusting mechanism. I made the thumb nut.
Not my finest knurling, but I couldn't get enough purchase in the chuck to allow for the thickness of my knurling head. It uses a 1/4-20 threaded rod and I tried screwing one in it a chucking the threaded rod, but it didn't work very well. Something was slipping no matter how hard I clamped down on the chuck jaws.
I needed to put a radius on the piece of Delrin and it needed to be a genuine radius. I have a couple of rotary tables but to mount them on my mill, I'd have to take off the milling vise, which is a pain in the butt to reattach and align.
So, I came up with this genius idea to be able to clamp the rotary table in my mill vise. It worked pretty good.
I didn't have any clamps small enough to work in the t-slots of that smalll rotary table, so I hooked up a small 4-jaw chuck, clamping the piece in 2 jaws with a section of 1/4 aluminum bar to hold it up off the table face.
It worked pretty well.
Something must be going wrong with my concentration. I had a very hard time making the two plates. It took a couple hours to cut, square and mill each pair to the exact square dimensions. Then when I started milling the pockets for the axle, I ruined the first two plates (on the left).
I bet I'm the only idiot who's ever done such a stupid thing.
Then, not to be outdone by myself, when I milled the pockets (in the proper orientation), my mind went on vacation again, and instead of milling a 5/16" pocket, I milled them 3/8ths.
I really didn't want to start over again, so I made a couple 3/8 to 1/4" bushings. They were not easy to make as they are only 0.15" deep.
The original plan was to use a 5/16 axle, but plans change to fit circumstances.
So, that's it, so far.