2018 POTD Thread Archive

[bfd]

working on a 3x24 belt sander for my brother in law he had his stolen from his truck in palm springs. I had an extra that needed a new handle, cord and kid plate on the bottom bill

 

[Ianagos]

working on a 3x24 belt sander for my brother in law he had his stolen from his truck in palm springs. I had an extra that needed a new handle, cord and kid plate on the bottom bill

Palm Springs is a strange place but I never took it for the kind of place where somebody would steal a belt sander though. Good on you for getting him another.

 

[T Bredehoft]

It is also possible to wind the spring for a coil pitch other than close with the lathe.

Thank you for that, RJ, I've been trying to space them out, never thought of using the lead screw.

 

[cascao]

Did a M16x2 tap (O1 tool steel) and saved a radiator.

 

[DoogieB]

I've been trying out some accessories I bought for the rotary table this winter.



It's a Vertex HV-8 8" rotary table. It fits pretty well on the 8x30 table of my mill.

Mounted a MT3 -> ER32 adapter into the rotary table. Had to make a thick washer and dig-out a metric bolt for a mini drawbar. It was cheap enough although the .002 runout isn't anything to write home about. It should do for many applications but for fussy stuff I will have to use a center + dog.



Also got the DP-2 dividing plate kit made for this rotary table. Had to do a bit of fitting (the crank wouldn't fit on the shaft) but it's working well now. I did briefly consider obtaining the popular BS-1 dividing head, but I have enough trouble keeping the rust off this thing without having another rarely used piece of tooling. Compared to the BS-1, the table doesn't pivot but those big plates support all divisions 100 and below, whereas most of the smaller heads start having trouble with divisions over 50. It's not a problem for this setup, but notice the plate's considerable overhang at the edge of the table.

Also picked-up a tailstock. It's not from Vertex, but this one was a bit cheaper and seems nicer. The height is adjustable with a knob and it has enough range for the rotary table at the top end and extends down to support collet blocks (on parallels) in the vise which should come in quite handy. I was also surprised the supplied mounting bolts fit in the smaller slots of this mill table.

Have a small job for the table tomorrow and then it's back onto the shelf. I'm so glad I didn't buy a bigger table as this thing is heavy enough to lug around.

 

[RJSakowski]

Another note on springs. Lee Spring has an excellent online catalog for springs. They have literally tens of thousands of springs listed, along with engineering data. While their minimum order usually isn't practical for a hobbyist, they have excellent engineering data which will provide useful information for someone who wants to roll their own.
http://www.leespring.com/

 

[Ray C]

Just made a simple tap driver that fits in a drill chuck on the mill. It could be used in a drill press too with the speed turned down low.

All total, I've got about 150 holes to drill tap in stainless steel. The driver is simply chucked-up and tightened on the round shaft part. The tap is a slip fit in the bore. The slot in the top accommodates the square head of the tap. When the tap is pushed all the way in, it gets driven by the square. You just keep hand pressure on the spindle to keep it engaged. When the tap gets to the right depth, just retract the spindle and it disengages and stops driving. To back the tap out, just reverse the motor, apply downward pressure on the spindle until it engages the tap again and it backs out of the hole.

The tap can now be driven by the flats (driven by hand pressure on the spindle to keep it engaged).


When it hits full depth, retract the spindle to disengage the flats.


EDIT: Here's another picture to show that the driver guides the tap nicely due to a slip fit between the body of the tap and the bore.


... About 50 holes down and counting. At 90RPM, the process is very simple and uneventful. No broken taps so far. These are all thru-holes on 316 stainless about 7/16" thick. All the 3/8" holes are done. When some new taps arrive, I've got 50 each of 5/16 and 1/4.

Ray

 

[Brento]

Its cool but im confused on how it works exactly.

 

[woodchucker]

so it keeps the tap centered in the chuck, if you stop the feed, it will pull itself out of the holder and disengage. The hole is drilled not all the way through, then a swipe is taken with an end mill to create the flats and expose the hole as a through hole. if you dont' feed at all, as soon as the tap moves enough to release from the flats, it stops turning. simple
or as Ray says pull back on the quill and it stops.

 

[Ray C]

Standby. My son was home and played cameraman for me. It's uploading now.


OK, here you go...

Ray