Thanks Steve. It's all scrap metal from our local scrapper. I have no idea what kind of steel it is. The nose piece was a roller of some kind I picked up years ago. I used a HSS cutting tool to mark it by hand to see if it would be machinable. The rest is just some rusty flat plate I found at the scrapper. The back plate is cast iron. I know the steel got hard when I welded it so it's not regular mild steel. I had previously built up some mild steel for a conneting rod on my loco by welding and it didn't get hard like this. It machined very well.
After I welded on the stand offs for the chuck it was hard machining even for my cheap carbide cutters, the HSS wouldn't touch it.
As far as cost I may have $30 to $40 in it and $10 of that is for various 1/4- 20 cap screws.
The finish was accomplished by filing and 150 and 250 grit emery cloth. The final finish using well used 250 cloth truning at 1200 rpm in the lathe.
Ron
After I welded on the stand offs for the chuck it was hard machining even for my cheap carbide cutters, the HSS wouldn't touch it.
As far as cost I may have $30 to $40 in it and $10 of that is for various 1/4- 20 cap screws.
The finish was accomplished by filing and 150 and 250 grit emery cloth. The final finish using well used 250 cloth truning at 1200 rpm in the lathe.
Ron
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