2016 POTD Thread Archive

[bmw rider]

The neighbour offered me a 100+ foot roll of armoured cable. Looked like it might make a good feed for 50 amp service to the blacksmith shop. We dug it out today, literally, the ends were buried in the ground. To our amazement it wasn't cable in the armour but 8 small plastic tubes and two telephone sized wires.
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Any ideas as to what it might have been used for ? Pneumatic control cable for something?

Greg

No idea on the tubes, but the wires were possibly for use in for locating the buried cable.

 

[zmotorsports]

I got to finish up a couple of on going projects. First I built some PVC storage tubes for filler rod for my tig welder and got the cooler plumbed up. The other project was to build a base for my new horizontal band saw. I wanted the base to be 30" high, the same height as my old saw. Too hard to bend over if you have a lot to cut. I made the base a lot wider than then the saw base for stability.

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Turned out excellent Bob.

Mike.

 

[zmotorsports]

A little upgrade for the carriage stop.
With the new proximity stop, I found myself using the cool feature quite a bit but the two 4mm cap screws that secure the stop where a PITA to adjust as they where located under the stop and with the lead screw in the way it made it tricky as the allen wrench would only engage at an angle with small turns, not to mention my knees and neck didn't care for this position.
Mark Jacobs suggested reworking the lock system so we took carful measurements and drilled a hole as close to the edge of the bed way and turn dial. I then took a piece of drill rod and turned a custom bolt with 10-24 threads. The two old cap screw holes where used for guide rods to ensure the locking plate would move evenly up/down. Mark was kind enough to turn these out of 1/4" drill rod. Two small grub screw holes where added to the bottom plate to ensure the clamping would be even once snug. The final process was done at Marks shop as he shared his collet block for this last step in drilling/threading the thimble for a threaded lever made from 1/4" drill rod which he also turned for me.
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I counter bored the block just a hair over .030 for a flush look.
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I didn't have a long nose live center, so I used a hardened ground pin (dead center) to support the stock while threading. I utilized Marks method for the threading with proximity stop and leaving the 1/2 nut engaged. This would be the last time I used the stupid cap screws to adjust/secure the carriage stop.
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The material turned very nice considering I used a rounded triangular insert designed for aggressive cuts.
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The test fit good. Th thimble portion was kept a bit long to ensure the lever would clear the edge of the carriage.
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This shot shows the two guide rods threaded where the old cap screws once lived. Smooth even clamping.
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Installed stop. The two s/s button head allen screws serve as grub screws for adjustment for even clamping (not 100% it needed this) with a 1/4 turn.
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And finally a swarf guard with a ramp to clear chips into lower pan. Overall a great upgrade for quick and simple adjustments.
Have a great weekend fellas!
Turn and burn!
Paco

Nice work Paco (and Mark). That turned out great.

Mike.

 

[Steve Shannon]

Not MY shop, but I'm on my way to the Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad.

 

[chevydyl]

Made a crank adapter for my mill, I also made a second one (not pictured) for a friend's prototrak k4, I had to run cutter comp on his to fit. There is absolutely no slop in the fit on either one, done 2 axis cnc for the lugs, I cut the angles manually on the lathe then used my face mill and Bison super spacer to do the hex, I used my face mill because it cuts a 45deg shoulder. When I comped the cutter for the other one I told it I was using a .115 cutter but used the same .125 size em for both. Mine is made of 1018 I believe, and the other is 4140 most likely, it didn't play well with those small hss end mills.

 

[Firestopper]

Clean job, that crank adapter turned out sweet.

 

[DoogieB]

Once I had a dedicated toolbox just for the mill, it was time to make some holders for the mill tooling.

Someone on Ebay is selling collet holders made out of 1/2" PVC sheet. If you paint it black and then machine it you get a nice contrast with the white PVC. Of course, where's the thrill in buying something already made? Unfortunately I don't have my table saw any more, so I had to cut the pieces with a saber saw and use the mill to clean-up the cuts. The PVC machines well, but it's, uh, slightly messy.



After that mess was cleaned-up, I laid-out the holes, center-punched them just in case I miss-counted cranks, glued the pieces together and painted everthing black.



It's a simple crank-job when it's on the mill.



The completed ER32 collet rack for one of the skinny drawers of the end cabinet.



I also made a rack for one of the deep drawers for the R8 collets and other goodies. The racks work well by saving space and keeping expensive tooling from banging against each other.

 

[BGHansen]

Quick project for the day. I really like my Grizzly G0709 lathe, but didn’t like the fact that the compound protractor only covered 120 degrees of travel. Time to take care of that nuance of the machine.

I started by indicating the side of the compound to parallel with the lathe bed. Attached an indicator to the headstock and ran the carriage back/forth with the indicator on the side of the compound. Snugged the compound rest screws and did fine adjustments with a copper hammer. That showed the pointer on the compound was out of about 0.5 degrees. I locked the compound down, reverified tram, then tapped the pointer over with a punch on the side. Blued up the compound at both 45 degrees and drew lines with a carbide scribe and beveled square.

Next I flipped the compound around 180 deg. and repeated the tram on the opposite side of the compound. The compound was blued and lines on 0 and both 45 degrees were scribed onto the compound with a beveled square and carbide scribe.

I have to do a little bit of interpretation of the angles; like setting the compound in line with the cross slide is done by lining up the scribed lines with 45 degrees, but it works! Should get me close enough, I’ll go to angled gauge blocks if something is really critical. This mod should work for any lathe with a similar style protractor.

Bruce

 

[hman]

Nice solution! Too bad so many lathes nowadays "cheap out" on features like this.

 

[CarlosA]

After pricing 22mm gear cutter arbors I decided to just make one. Turned the shank down to 3/4, the gear mount to 22.5mm, and drilled and tapped a hole for a spacer and flange bolt to hold the gear cutter on. Next will be a simple set screw for a key - I've never added a key before nor had any problem, but this is going to see a lot of use.

After it was all set I chucked it up in a 3/4 r8 collet and trued up the final dimension in the mill. Runout is practically zero - moving maybe 10% of the .0005" marks.