2015 POTD Thread Archive

[FOMOGO]

Brass is a bit of a challenge compared to aluminum. Aluminum you can do in a tin can with a pile of charcoal in a hole in the ground. Unless you really want to get into casting it is probably more efficient to buy brass stock. I have not been at all pleased with the machinability of cast Al but the brasses seem to be OK.
To do brass, you need:
a decently efficient furnace
a good gas or oil burner with a blower
a real ceramic crucible (not steel pipe)
casting sand
and various other tools.
If you are interested in learning metal casting I recommend AlloyAvenue.com.
I am also happy to help or advise in any way.
R

Thanks for the site info and the offer of help, much appreciated. It may well be a year before I get to it as I have a pretty daunting backlog of projects at the moment and still a few weeks before I get home to those, but I'm sure like so many of us I can't help but be intrigued by by these processes and their potential uses. Thanks, Mike

 

[FOMOGO]

No Phoenix on that hood. It's the formula hood with dual nostrils, functional ram air. It does not however have ram air heads or anything associated with ram air, except the air cleaner system. I'll be starting a 76 trans am this summer which will have all the ram air goodies, it's a 455 4sp car with the shaker hood. The one in the vid is a 400 with an auto 400, transgo shift kit built by yours truly.

Looks like you have work cut out for you. Always thought it was interesting that Pontiac used the same block for all their ( mid 60's? & up) engines 326 thru 455 using different bore/ stroke as opposed to the GM/Ford/Chrysler small block, big block scenario. Pretty amazing how much after market support is available for these engines compared to ten fifteen years ago. I know when I first started building FE series fords everyone was scrambling for used or NOS parts and paying accordingly. Now there is a plethora of speed parts available at fairly reasonable prices and combined with the (temporary) cheap gas prices, what a great time to be a gear head. Mike

 

[dracozny]

I don't have a project in mind right now so I cast some stock out of old brass pluming parts and other scrap.

It doesn't machine quite as well as brass bar stock but not bad. I wonder if I could heat treat it to improve machinability?
R

this link may provide some insights for you when it comes to brass machining and heat treating

 

[great white]

My Bird has Thunder in front of it and I'm pretty much a Ford guy, but I like all the old iron and generally the people that own them. Granted some just buy them, but the ones that turn there own wrenches I can usually talk to for hours. That one should be really nice when done. Will it get the Big Bird decal on the hood? I think I like them better without. Mike

interesting.

My bird also has thunder in front of it as well as having a "62" attached to it.

Its a bit of a basket case right now. Need to order my millermatic 211 to get it back together.

 

[RVJimD]

We got the brakes for the RC JET finished. Made a second version with a bit larger hub and thinned down the wall of the drums, made new center parts to match the new drum size and found some metric O rings to fit the new drums. Decided to NOT cut the slot all the way through just because it looks better.

Jim

 

[architard]

I should take some pictures of the tooling I made for this but I got so excited that this actually worked I wanted to show the results.

I have 88 of these 1/4" plates that are parts for custom tie rod ends of a clevis/turnbuckle system for rafter ties in a custom built home I'm helping build. Each plate requires (3) 1/2" holes and (1) 3/4" hole. I was dreading having to drill all of those. So I made a punch and die set out of 01 tool steel in the lathe and heat treated them. I mounted them in my 20 ton horrible freight shop press, which I've upgraded with an air over hydraulic jack.

On testing the first hole I ran the jack until no more air would go into it. Nothing happened. I thought it didn't work. Then about 5 seconds later BAM! It punched through. Sounded like a gunshot went off in the shop! But the results are great, even if the process is a bit loud. I have a polyurethane stripper spring on order to finish up the tooling part of this. I've also done the calcs and the larger hole requires about 15 tons of force. I wouldn't want to push this press much higher than that.

Now I just need to punch 87 more!

 

[Mark_f]

I took a break from projects today and did some needed machine maintenance. Recently I went to New York state to pick up an early.... really early Burke mill in pieces as I needed the table badly. I hurried and put the table and saddle on my machine and got it running. It is like a whole different machine. I don't have to constantly adjust the gib wile moving the table and fight the excessive backlash from the shop made lead screw setup that was on it and worn out and not fitted properly. anyway that part is done and working great. I needed new spindle pulley also and got a nice 4 step spindle pulley and motor pulley with the parts. I decided to put these on today. I had to bore the new spindle pulley from 1 3/8" out to 1 1/2" to fit my machine which I did and cut a new key way in it. I discovered the gearmotor shaft on my mill is too short for the new motor pulley sooooo.....
I machined an extension to make the shaft stick out farther and allow room for the new step pulley.
This is the extension installed on the gearmotor.

And this is the new setup complete and running. My old pulleys had 3 steps and were made up of old pulleys cobbled together with bolts. This setup is much nicer and gives me 8 speeds. It is also much smoother and quieter. If you look at the rear of the spindle. I removed the old shop made power feed pulleys and put a straight spacer in their place. this cleaned up the rear of the machine.

I installed the power feed setup I got in New York. My machine was a " FrankenBurke" ( made up of different machine parts and shop converted from hand lever to lead screw feed). Now it is a normal #4 Burke mill. I removed the factory drive pulley for the power feeds as I am going to run it with a D.C. motor and drive that I recently acquired. That way I can have any feed I want and turn it on and of as I want. I will install that next week. All in all it was a good day

 

[Arkie]

I should take some pictures of the tooling I made for this but I got so excited that this actually worked I wanted to show the results.

Yes, I would like to see your tooling.

 

[savarin]

Managed to make 6 brass thumb screws for one of the finder mounts.
Only another 12 to make.

 

[Mark_f]

I spent most of today cleaning up in the shop. I hung everything I could on the walls as in a 8 x 12 shop, real estate is a premium.
There are 40 cutters hanging there. I didn't want them banging around in a drawer to get nicked

I also made a table lock for my Burke mill. I don't know how Burke did it , but I needed to have a way to trip the stop for the power feed and to lock the table when desired.
The disc on the screw serves as a stop for the trip dog to hit and stop the power feed. I extended the large knob out to make it easy for my old arthritic hands to be able to lock the table. It seems to work great. I don't know what Burke used , but this works for me.