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POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?
- Thread starter wachuko
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In what I believe to be a time-honored and cherished tradition of hobby machinists, I invested an insane amount of time and effort making a fancy center ejector whacker bar for my lathe. I was tired of grabbing a random length of round bar, and decided to make something snazzy. The sad thing is I went out there with the intention of doing some useful work, and I ended up farting around with this dumb nonsense until I used up my window of opportunity.
So here it is. Lo, behold, the world's most ridiculousest, most over-fancified headstock center ejector bar thingie, complete with rich Cornithian brass, and kah-nurling. After I engaged the half-nut and began to run the knurl, the stock kept creeping into the chuck, and pulling away from the live center in the tailstock. I detected and corrected this, but not before the first 1" or so of knurling turned out like total crap. So I decided to do something I wouldn't normally do. When the lathe got to the headstock end of the knurling, after about 16 hours and 32 minutes, I just left everything hooked up, drizzled liberal amounts of Earl (oil for yinz what ain't hillbilles) everywhere, and ran the the whole thing backwards. Since I had a live center in a firmly rooted tailstock, the stock couldn't go too far pulling out of the chuck. It actually turned out pretty okay. It's not my best knurling by far, but it's more knurling than this beater bar actually deserved.
Also, lots of random hand file work.
Okay, enough blather, here is the objet de beauté (or maybe d'uglité?):
So here it is. Lo, behold, the world's most ridiculousest, most over-fancified headstock center ejector bar thingie, complete with rich Cornithian brass, and kah-nurling. After I engaged the half-nut and began to run the knurl, the stock kept creeping into the chuck, and pulling away from the live center in the tailstock. I detected and corrected this, but not before the first 1" or so of knurling turned out like total crap. So I decided to do something I wouldn't normally do. When the lathe got to the headstock end of the knurling, after about 16 hours and 32 minutes, I just left everything hooked up, drizzled liberal amounts of Earl (oil for yinz what ain't hillbilles) everywhere, and ran the the whole thing backwards. Since I had a live center in a firmly rooted tailstock, the stock couldn't go too far pulling out of the chuck. It actually turned out pretty okay. It's not my best knurling by far, but it's more knurling than this beater bar actually deserved.
Also, lots of random hand file work.
Okay, enough blather, here is the objet de beauté (or maybe d'uglité?):
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Very nice. I need to make one of these as well.
I always overthink something like this… I have not made one thinking that I needed to buy a long brass rod…. Goodness…just make the tip out of brass!!
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This one of course, from a 2018 post…
POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?
Espresso machine lever was rough... I have taken it apart several times to polish the main lever cam shaft... replaced all valves... and it would be smooth for a few shots and get rough again... Well, today I decided to figure out what the problem was. Turns out it was a simple fix. This...
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That's why I like this forum. Those "Oh Duh!" moments of pure simplicity! (Stashing this brass tipped steel rod idea away now...
)
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Don't feel bad. I was 98% of the way toward talking myself into press fitting a piece of brass round bar on the end, and knurling that. The brass I would have used probably costs $283 in 2022 dollars. It would have been spectacularly stupid and ridiculous. "It's a whacker bar, Michael. Don't be a dumbass. Just put your kah-nurling on the steel and be done with it."
As far as that goes, I just squinted at the picture, and I'm pretty happy with that knurling. Running the setup in reverse was a stroke of genius.
You might have been a home shop machinist too long when you leave your knurling running while you take the dog inside, feed her, zap a couple of croissants, eat them, and then finally mosey back out to the shop. I still had 2" to go.
I ran
this
sl
ow.
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POTD was from a couple of months ago. We have chickens for eggs and mild entertainment. I went out to check on “the girls” one morning and saw a window screen knocked in. Yup, a raccoon climbed up on the nesting box, busted through the screen and got into the coop. We ended up losing one chicken.
Raccoons are enterprising! One or more climbed on top of the chicken coop nesting box, busted through the window screen, had dinner, and busted out the LH window.
A year ago, I retrimmed the exterior doors & windows at my mom & dad’s house with white plastic brick molding (wonderful stuff, never need to paint it). The old wooden molding came home to my scrap wood pile. It’d work perfectly for this project to reinforce the windows.
I made up frames from the recycled brick molding that fit over the existing brick molding on the coop. I don’t recall why we had the stainless-steel hardware cloth, but I used it to make heavy screens. Real tough layout work; set the frame on the cloth, and mark the inside with a Sharpie. Offset those lines to allow for a return flange to the inside of the frame, and cut with a shears.
Cut and screwed together frames from recycled brick molding
These "Beverly"-style shears do a WONDERFUL job making straight cuts in sheet metal and hardware cloth
It's been a couple of months since I did the project; can’t recall if I cut the corners out with the shears (probably) or used my corner notcher. Bent the hardware cloth with the DiAcro (24”) brake and HF 3-in-one (30”) brake (one length was 28”, couldn’t use the DiAcro). Set the hardware cloth in the frames and screwed the cloth to the frame.
Bent the hardware cloth on a 24" DiAcro brake
Long sides bent on a HF 30" 3-in-one machine. Used an adjustable table saw/drill press/miter box, etc. support to support the cloth before bending.
Screwed the hardware cloth to the frames
Frames were screwed to the coop over the existing brick molding. Chickens are safe again!
Nice and secure now!
Thanks for looking!
Bruce
Raccoons are enterprising! One or more climbed on top of the chicken coop nesting box, busted through the window screen, had dinner, and busted out the LH window.
A year ago, I retrimmed the exterior doors & windows at my mom & dad’s house with white plastic brick molding (wonderful stuff, never need to paint it). The old wooden molding came home to my scrap wood pile. It’d work perfectly for this project to reinforce the windows.
I made up frames from the recycled brick molding that fit over the existing brick molding on the coop. I don’t recall why we had the stainless-steel hardware cloth, but I used it to make heavy screens. Real tough layout work; set the frame on the cloth, and mark the inside with a Sharpie. Offset those lines to allow for a return flange to the inside of the frame, and cut with a shears.
Cut and screwed together frames from recycled brick molding
These "Beverly"-style shears do a WONDERFUL job making straight cuts in sheet metal and hardware cloth
It's been a couple of months since I did the project; can’t recall if I cut the corners out with the shears (probably) or used my corner notcher. Bent the hardware cloth with the DiAcro (24”) brake and HF 3-in-one (30”) brake (one length was 28”, couldn’t use the DiAcro). Set the hardware cloth in the frames and screwed the cloth to the frame.
Bent the hardware cloth on a 24" DiAcro brake
Long sides bent on a HF 30" 3-in-one machine. Used an adjustable table saw/drill press/miter box, etc. support to support the cloth before bending.
Screwed the hardware cloth to the frames
Frames were screwed to the coop over the existing brick molding. Chickens are safe again!
Nice and secure now!
Thanks for looking!
Bruce
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And where there's one there's probably dozens more. Had a neighbor start a battle with coons. Caught one messing around near his house. By the time he was done, he had 31 of them...
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We have a lot of them in our area. I had a stretch years ago where I shot 51 of them in 3 years. We live on 64-acres; they're fine when they stay in the woods. But when they come up around the house and get in the trash, bird feeder, potted plants, hang on the eave-troughs, etc., it's game on. A smarter person would have closed up the coop windows at night as we were in the middle of processing 50 meat chickens. Lots of "guts" drawing the coons in; "guts" all gone in the morning. Coons just doing what they do.
Bruce