Coaxial Indicator - First Job

[epanzella]

I had a friend come to me with an emergency job. He had to put a thumb on an excavator because a job was being held up. He had his fab guy torch off a mount off an old junk machine but discovered the bosses were bored for a 1.5" pin but the new thumb used a 1.75" pin. He brought it to me to get bored out. This was pushing the limits of my HF round column mill but I am his last resort. The part was too big to bore both bosses from the same setup so I had to bore one hole and then flip the whole setup around and bore the other one. I was nervous about getting the new enlarged bores to line up with each other. The bosses had been ground on and welded on so there was no surface to indicate off of. I figured the angle plate would take care of the X direction but the Y was flopping in the breeze. I finally tried taking a straight boring bar, stuck it thru both bosses against the Y direction and held it with a bungee cord. Then I indicated it vertically until the holes were in in alignment. Next I took my shiny new coax indicator out of the box and stuck in a collet. I love that thing. Once I figured out what probe to use I had had the needle barely trembling in about a minute. Best $80 I ever spent. I bored the two holes from separate setups and said my prayers. There was no way to test the alignment until the job was all done. The pin went in like it was sliding into a jar of honey. Murphy must have called in sick!

 

[Martin W]

Nice job!
Cheers

 

[C-Bag]

I’ve used my clone coax several times and it has never let me down. I don’t even run the machine like I’ve seen Mr. Pete do, just spin by hand and it works great. My learning curve included realizing there was a plastic ring clipped on that limited travel. Once I got that sorted life was good. I also paid $80 and worth every penny.

 

[DavidR8]

Fantastic work.

 

[ErichKeane]

I love my coax indicator! It is so useful for just about every project. I ended up breaking the glass on mine today though, dropped it out of the collet and it dropped onto the floor. Not the first (and probably not its last time falling to the ground

 

[JimDawson]

Nice setup

 

[epanzella]

Just a follow up. My friend sent me a cupla pix of the part welded in place on the excavator boom and the thumb installed onto the boom. All that's missing is the hydraulic cylinder that connects the thumb to the new pin.

 

[C-Bag]

Good job. More proof that the operator is more important than the machine. I've done some crazy stuff on my mill/drill and it has never been the problem if there was one. It was always either dull tooling or dull operator, not the mill.

 

[Janderso]

I love my coax indicator! It is so useful for just about every project. I ended up breaking the glass on mine today though, dropped it out of the collet and it dropped onto the floor. Not the first (and probably not its last time falling to the ground

I have the same problem. You need three hands when removing them. I now place a bucket with a towel so the coax drops nice and easy. (When possible)

 

[brino]

Murphy must have called in sick!

By the sounds of this it was not luck that got you thru, but knowledge and planning.
Well done!

Brian