2020 POTD Thread Archive

[Tim9]

I didn’t like the loose woodruff key. The only reason I stopped when finishing that first one was I already broke a carbide parting bit. I think the problem was I used a piece of scrap unknown steel. It had a high chrome percentage in my opinion.
So I decided to to use a known leaded steel. Wow...what a difference.
Anyway, it literally took a couple of minutes. I’m sure i didn’t invent this since machinist are crafty bastards. But I tell you....never again will I spend a half an hour looking for a woodruff key...or running to the hardware looking for one unless it were something special....

 

[pdentrem]

Wife has a old Craftsman 14.4 v drill/driver that the charger died. So I took one of the DC-DC converters that one sees on eBay or Amazon. Gutted the interior, reused a 18 volt wall wart that I had stripped the case at an earlier time. Hot glue the DC converter on top. The batteries can slide off and on clearing the unit. Total cost was about $20 in converter and wire etc.
Pierre

 

[Tim9]

Finally finished the shaper clean up of the leadscrew and tweeking the advance mechanism. Broached the handle for the woodruff key. I don’t have an arbor press and my little.... and I mean little harbor freight hydraulic isn’t my preference because there’s no feedback of the pressure of the broach. So I used my drill press. Worked okay but I wouldn’t have tried this if it was a steel part or a big key. But it’s only 1/8” and mostly brass.

 

[Tim9]

And... just bought a Top Notch style threading tool from Shars. Tool was only 24.00 and wanted to give it a shot because I really like my Top Notch Kennametal 1/2 boring bar which I got from EBay a while back. I’ve used a number of times and like the finish a ease of use.
Plus... thought I was being thrifty and slick when I scored 5 Kennametal #2 size inserts also off of EBay.
So I go to try out my new toy the other day and CRASH. I break the insert and damaged the insert shim. Turns out that the inserts were wrong. Frustrated I go to the Shars site and just spring for the 11.00 cost of each new insert. I order three....plus shipping and now I’ve got probably 70.00 invested now. Gotta love this hobby. FWIW... I actually went too fast that I hadn’t yet noticed the damaged shim. I just ordered the new proper inserts. About 15 minutes later I noticed the shim was damaged .... got back on Shars website and couldn’t find the shims. By the way... a nice thing about the Shars tool is all the part numbers are right on the tool. Insert numbers, screw numbers and shim numbers are all there.

Well... like I said, Go online to Shars website... no luck. Sent an email and get a very fast report that they don’t see it in stock.... will have to check with supplier.

So.... here I am with 70 bucks into a useless tool. So here’s today’s project. Making a shim. We’re talking small. 3.75mm wide. # 13 sized drill bit screw hole which is countersunk with a # 35 sized drill.
Anyway I had a mostly intact shim ( which may have still worked) but I d want to chance it.

 

[FOMOGO]

Not exactly a world changer, but i got to try out one of the expandable arbors I bought recently. I was out of 3" cutoff wheels for my die-grinder but I had several 4.5" ones that were too worn down to use on the angle grinder so I drilled a 3/8" hole in a washer, chucked it up on the arbor, and turned down the o.d. to fit the to fit the o.d. of the bigger disc. Kind of like buy one get one free. Mike

 

[silverhawk]

I have two lathes I am rebuilding (a South Bend heavy 10L and a Dunlap wood lathe). The wood lathe is taking my attention right now, because I have to wait for material to rebuild a part for the taper attachment on the 10L. So, today, my wife was kind enough to give me the morning to do some machining. I'd managed to take a round 3" diameter chunk of scrap aluminum, cut it in half, and mill the flats to the same level, then flipped and milled a notch to take a drill/thread tap/bolt. One of the halves was done with a 7/16-14 right hand thread, and the other a 7/16-14 left hand thread. I used a tap for those, as it was aluminum and I wasn't worried about anything there.

I took a steel hex rod and put it in the lathe. I rounded each end about 1 1/2" (the whole thing was 4.75" long, just enough to fit between the bars on a lathe stand). Threads were mostly cut on the lathe and then completed with a die. It was my first time cutting left hand threads on the lathe. Usually, I don't run "test pieces", I just jump in and go for it, and it always seems to work out well.

The assembly would allow me to turn the hex bar in either direction to expand the "nuts" away from each other or toward each other. I put it all together with the nuts as far as they would go.

Then I could slip it into place and expand the nuts to clamp down on the inside of the bars, without altering the integrity of the lathe stand. Here it is from above (looking through the wood lathe ways).

Here's the assembly from underneath.

This will give me a surface on which to put the tensioning system for the opposite pulley/counter shaft for the wood lathe. I still have to figure out the motor mount, but this one is getting closer to being usable.

 

[Ianagos]

Project of the day was yard clean up. I think we got atleast 2000lbs of scrap metal and burned tons of old wood. Gonna take down some pine trees and gravel the cleared up space.

 

[hman]

I've been working on replacing the spindle bearings on my vintage Grizzly D1007 (RF-30 clone) mill. Pulled everything but the motor off the head, cleaned things up, etc. Ordered new (genuine, as far as I can tell) Nachi roller and ball bearings. Installed them in the spindle today. Then the question comes up - how tight to make the retaining nuts??? And how to make sure that things are "run in" - bearing races fully seated, lube level OK, etc. I have nearly zero experience with mill spindles or tapered rollers. So I fell back on a general practice I've read about here and elsewhere ... tighten thing up to where they feel good, then run the spindle and check for overheating.

Adjusting (and readjusting) the tightness while the spindle is in the mill is a bit difficult, so I figgered out this benchtop solution. Installed the drawbar and a collet, tightened up a on piece of ⅜" shaft, clamped the spindle housing in a handy vise, and used a drill motor to spin the spindle at its top speed (~1800 RPM). The first result: I could feel a bit of warmth with my hand after a minute or two. So I backed off the jam nut about ⅛ turn and got out my handy dandy Harbor Freight IR thermometer. Second test was to run the spindle for 5 minutes. Almost no temperature rise, even though the spindle offered a slight but noticeable resistance to turning by hand. Unless I'm way off base, this seems like an OK place to be.

Comments?

 

[BGHansen]

POTD was making a different cart for my small Harbor Freight sand blasting cabinet. I threw it on a 16 x 30 cart with a piece of particle board under it to move it around. Had a dedicated water filter laying on the bottom of the cart as the air from my compressor was wet enough to make the media stick and clump together. The cabinet leaked a fair amount of sand when in use from underneath. My "elegant solution" was to cut some priority mail boxes and slip them under the cabinet to contain the media and keep it off the floor.


$100 HF sand blaster on a Craftsman 16 x 30 cart



I picked up a fair amount of Creform tubing off Craig's List a while back. Plan was to make up a cart for the blast cabinet.




I had some 6 mm thick corrugated polycarbonate sheeting left over from another project. Figured it'd work for a shelf at the bottom of the cart. Cutting thin material on the table saw can lead to a lot of chatter. The blade pulls the material down into the space between the blade insert and the saw blade, then the material snaps back up. If you're not careful, it can even fracture the material (ask me how I know). I use a zero-clearance blade insert when cutting thin or flexible material, takes the chatter down to nothing.


Stock Craftsman blade insert and a composite plastic one from The Woodworker's Supply of New Mexico




As long as the cabinet was off the base, figured it was a good time to look for the leak(s). Pretty much the complete bottom where the funneled media reservoir meets the sides showed evidence of dust, especially in the corners. I dumped the media, flipped the cabinet on its top and shot a tube of silicone caulk to seal it up. Also made some plywood sides for the particle board base and Roto-zipped a hole in the bottom to access the media drain at the bottom of the cabinet.


Underside view. So where does it leak? About everywhere . . .


Cut a hole in the bottom of the base to access the media drain. Didn't show it, but shot one screw in a piece of sheet metal that sets over the hole. The metal covers the hole and can be swung out of the way from below to get to the media plug.




Another project was changing the internal lighting. I bolted in a fluorescent light fixture years ago, figured it was time to upgrade to LED's. Plus improve my wiring "exit strategy".


I routed the wiring for a light fixture through a vacuum port on the side of the cabinet and closed it off with duct tape. . .




Drilled and tapped some mounting holes for the LED light fixture brackets. Highly accurate Sharpie marker layout through the previous light fixture drilled holes in the cabinet.





LED's in place.



My not so elegant solution for routing the LED fixture wires out of the cabinet was to make a rubber bung to plug the hole. Used a hole saw and a circle cutter on the drill press to make a bunch of rubber disks. Didn't show it, but made a Delrin washer on the lathe for mashing on one end. Plus an aluminum plate with a tapped hole for a bolt to mash the assembly together. Yes, not my cleanest fix but it works.


Cut the rubber disks on the drill press





Finished stand.



Waiting on some inside lens protectors from Amazon before seeing how well my caulk job did on the leaks. Best part is it freed up a 16 x 30 cart for other uses in the shop. I love those carts for transporting tools to the job, keeps me from leaving tools in and under things.

Thanks for looking,


Bruce

 

[extropic]

Bruce,
I understand all the improvements to your blast cabinet except using the vacuum port for the wiring.
I think you'll be much happier with the cabinet (less leaking, less dust obscuring the view) if you run the electrical through the other small port in the upper left corner (black plug) of that panel. Thereby, leaving the vacuum port for the attachment of a vacuum. after all, your pumping compressed air into a (relatively) fixed volume and it wants to vent somewhere.

I'm sure you can find a cord grip that will fit (or adapt) to the electrical port to seal and protect the conductors.