2017 POTD Thread Archive

[T Bredehoft]

Ever since my son bought the Propeller Factory, I've wished the Ames turret lathe had a front cutter on the cross slide. The back cut off tool works a charm, but I've wanted at least a chamfer tool in front, sometimes I could have used a profile tool. My son's on vacation, touring Blighty with his Costa Rican wife and I've got time to play. I've made some T nuts, (4140 half hard, about RC 35) and a riser, still need to make a tool holder, but that's soon to come. Then I can play with the big boys. In the past I made a boring bar to fit in one of the turning tool holders, for boring .125 holes, but this is a new departure for me. I guess that's why I'm a Tool Maker.



Its just a little lathe, that's a 1/2 in collet, the T nuts are 3/4 long and 1/2 wide. I'll probably have to remove the front tool to change collets. but that's no big deal. Its all fun.

 

[ddickey]

Made a tang for my MT3 ER40 collet. Fits real good.

 

[dave_r_1]

I just finished rebuilding a Kawasaki FR651V for my Gravely zero-turn mower. It died an early death most likely due to the fan being installed incorrectly by the factory, so when I used the mower for longer periods of time on hotter days, it would overheat.



I reinstalled it in the zero turn and it fired right up. The speed of the motor pulses a bit, so I'll probably have to jigger with the governor a bit, but I think it will go on to live a long productive life.

Now I have to design and build some kind of hydraulic front end loader/crawler monstrosity for it, as I bought a B&S motor for the zero turn to get it up and running right away while I fixed this motor, and I don't want it to just sit around doing nothing and I wouldn't get much money for it selling it...

Edit:
double whee! Adjusted the governor, low & high idle (didn't really do much), and rerouted the fuel line so it is lower and more horizontal and now the engine runs nice and smooth. Probably was just having trouble with getting enough fuel... Ran it around on the park for a couple minutes, runs no problem, and plenty of power for running the blades and the bagger blower.

 

[JimDawson]

Well I thought I was going to make some chips today, but I wound up fixing a water line before I could have fun. My normal morning is to drink coffee, get caught up on the TV news, and work on any drawings I need for the day's chip making. So by about noon I'm done with the drawings, and head out to the shop. I get the roll up door open and turn around to stick my USB drive into the mill computer to transfer files. Then my roommate starts yelling from the house ''There is water all over my bathroom floor and I can't shut if off''. Oh %)*&^. So I head for the pump house and shut the water off before heading in to survey the damage.

So here's what happened:
Roommate cleaning bathroom
Hanging mirror behind toilet falls behind toilet, somehow??
Falling mirror hits toilet water line and pulls crappy sweat solder joint apart, about 3 inches back in the wall.

The only access is about a 1/2 inch hole the the paneling.

Wrestle the shop vac into the house to vacuum up about a 1/4 inch of water on the floor.

Need to enlarge the hole to access the joint. Head for the shop tool cabinet to grab my new Bosch saber saw. Hmmmm, not there, no Sawzall either. At least young son left me the old (about 30 years) B&D saber saw with the stripped blade holder piece. So put a helicoil in the stripped pot metal blade holder and got it fixed up. I actually had a 10-32 helicoil kit in the drawer. I glad I don't toss old tools, they go in my I'll fix it someday stack.

So I get the wall opened up, now I can get to the piping. I could see why the joint failed, the ''plumber'' that put it together really did a crap job. More solder on the outside of the pipe than there was in the elbow, somebody needs to teach that guy how to sweat solder. So back to the shop for a propane torch, solder, and some zinc chloride flux. My propane torch is nowhere to be found, young son is doing some plumbing also. No flux either. I did find some solder. Off to the local Ace hardware to pick up a cheap propane torch and some flux. Young son and I are going to have a talk.

I did pretty good, it only took two tries to get a good watertight joint. Actually not bad considering I had no room to work and was working with used fittings and water in the pipe. I thought I could boil it out, but it was draining back from somewhere. I finally figured out if I turned the outside hose bib on, I could get the water to drain out of the system. You can't get a good joint with water in the pipe.

Then there is the fire issue working in a tight space between walls with tinder dry wood and a propane torch. I filled a pitcher with water from the toilet tank a poured about half of it around the work area, then kept the rest of it in reserve. I also had some vermiculite board in the shop so I was able to put a piece of that between the work area and the other wall. It's good for about 2500°. The good news is that the weather is hot and dry right now so things will dry out quickly.

So about 3 hours later I get to head back out to the shop to make some chips

BTW, the mirror survived the fall

 

[2volts]

Well done Jim.
Even though things go wrong unexpectedly and throw the day's plans out the window, there's some satisfaction in being able to work out what to do, do it and solve the problem yourself.

pete

 

[savarin]

as 2 bolts has a nice knurler above I thought I would place this here.
Do not use ordinary bolts to hold the knurls they are too soft.
These were cut from a high tensile bolt.
Funnily the bottom pin was fine only the top pin wore down like this. (this is the same top pin from 2 different angles))

Even with all this wear the knurls still tracked ok.
Todays job was making two of these.

 

[roadie33]

I did pretty good, it only took two tries to get a good watertight joint. Actually not bad considering I had no room to work and was working with used fittings and water in the pipe. I thought I could boil it out, but it was draining back from somewhere. I finally figured out if I turned the outside hose bib on, I could get the water to drain out of the system. You can't get a good joint with water in the pipe.


BTW, the mirror survived the fall

Hey Jim,
Learned a trick from an old Plumber on water in pipes.
Take a piece of bread and tear a chunk out of the center ( no crust ) roll into a ball and stuff in pipe to hold back water. Solder up quickly and done.
Before turning on water remove any filters or screens from faucet. When you turn water back on it will force the bread out and good to go.

 

[kvt]

Well not all today but put it to good use today. Made a holder for my grinder to hold it in the QCTP, A Foredom collet head, held in with set screws, the whole thing was machined on my Sherline mill,
Then today used it to true up the backing plate on my 3 jaw, It had gotten dropped at some point, Thus was not quite true, About .002 out from 1 side to the other. So setup, squared up. then ground it
not the smoothest grind but when I put the gauge on it now down to less than a .0005 from what I can tell still rough Now once the chuck is back together (all apart and getting cleaned good) Then Will see what it is like for run out.

 

[f350ca]

Sorry, more wood stuff.
I bought a load of logs for firewood a while back. All red oak and at least a quarter of the load are saw logs.
Started quarter sawing some today. To quarter saw you roughly split the log in two, then split the half's in to and take boards of the faces of those. The first ones are true quarter sawn then as you go deeper they're called rift sawn as the grain angles from 90 deg to the face.

Quater sawing produces more stable lumber and in oak exposes the rays in the wood.
Unbelievable how much stress is relieved, this is splitting an 8 foot log in half, just before the blade broke through the other end.

More waste when quarter sawing but that all goes into the boiler anyway.

Got about 150 board feet out of 4 logs this afternoon, not a bad haul, apparently quatersawn red oak is retailing at $6.50 per board foot.

Greg

 

[2volts]

I finished the knurling tool off. I remade the arm that goes in the tool holder, machined the slot for the cross arm to be a pressed fit and pinned them together.
The whole tool is rock solid now.
I decided to leave the wheel pins as is. I've noted Savarin's experience shown above, but if the pins start to wear its easy enough to turn and thread some new ones.
The diamond wheels make too fine a pattern (that's 12mm steel bar in the picture), I do need to get a pair of coarser wheels.

pete