2020 POTD Thread Archive

[eugene13]

My son's project took most of the day: We're doing some modifications to the roll cage of a race car, he spent 5 hours getting the fit of the right side "A" pillar, sometimes you the only tool that works is a file.

 

[NortonDommi]

My son's project took most of the day: We're doing some modifications to the roll cage of a race car, he spent 5 hours getting the fit of the right side "A" pillar, sometimes you the only tool that works is a file.

Having once built roll-cages for a living an air power die-grinder with a 5/8" Flame burr, an air powered pistol grip sander and an air-file were essential tools.

 

[Downunder Bob]

Silverhawke,
I think you have hit the nail on the head. My time was 9500 hours with some taken off for academic achievements and passing of practical tests. The beauty of a formal Trade is that in most countries it comprises high level,(University),academic study combined with on the job practical hands-on work. It sets you up to tackle everything except to corporate office environment. There being a huge amount of cross-Trade skills it is easy to move to another Trade if desired and also gives a very good basis for academic study in a university environment if one can stomach the political correctness and outright BS that you will be surrounded with.

I hear you Norton, my trade Fitter and Turner + Toolmaker, was very interesting, and intensive. When I later studied Marine Engineering at Uni, It was a relatively easy transition, although some of the maths was pretty tough, it was never my strong suit. And as you say the PC and BS were rather hard to handle.

 

[DiscoDan]

I guess you could call cutting my first threads "what I made in my shop today". My colleague at Tuckahoe Steam and Gas Association gave me a lesson and set me loose on the Logan. The threads are a bit rough but you know they are threads so I count that as a success!

 

[pdentrem]

Next project is to make a new mirror cell for the Explorer Scientic 12” truss that failed the previous owner. I bought the scope as is and on tear down found the issue!
Pierre

 

[GoceKU]

Today i had small project to do on my lathe so i took couple of pictures to share it. The project was to enlarge the centre hole of couple of 16" car rims. The first task was to modify the hub i'm using to hold the rims, i cut the centre of the hub and made a relief for the cutter then mounted the rim and made couple of cuts to bring it to size. Quick project and as big in diameter as my lathe can handle, not bad for a small machine as my.

 

[Winegrower]

I liked the tilt table with a cylinder that is held in the vise and the cylinder can be rotated to the desired angle. I had the stuff on hand, so made it up. As you can see in the first picture, I used a spin indexer to rotate the cylinder so that I could put some small flats at zero, 30 and 45 degrees. These flats let you position the table at exactly the right angle by using a small wedge, like a piece of tool steel or such and keep the cylinder oriented correctly. I was pleased at how accurate this works out to be, as the second picture shows using a reference 45 triangle to check. 0.001 movement over about 3" is routinely achievable just with the wedge/shim approach. If there were a particular unique angle you needed, it's simple to add another flat.
Incidentally, another shortcut, I sorted out two small Samarium Cobalt magnets which were equal thickness within 50 millionths, freeing up a hand or two during verification alignment.
I also had a small not very useful vise laying around in the way, so I fly cut the base, trimmed the sides square, and otherwise plumbed it via machining on the mill, and mounted it to the tilt plate with 4 bolts that hold the vise in X or Y oriented alignment as needed. Of course you could add mounting holes on the tilt plate in advance, or to fit a particular project. I will probably stop at this level until some need comes up.

 

[Logan 400]

I bought a carriage stop for my Logan 400. It was home made and I figured I could maybe modify it if needed. The top was too thick and had 2 machine screws with nuts through the bottom to bolt it on. I needed to reduce the thickness about 1/8" off the top. After several hours of filing, then drilling larger holes through the top part for larger bolts and tapping the bottom part I have a working carriage stop. I will modify the adjustment rod next.

Not much clearance but it works.
Thanks for looking.
Jay

 

[rwm]

I doubt it will sit that close to the headstock in regular use anyway?
Robert

 

[Logan 400]

True. Shown for reference. About an inch too far left.