POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

Just for fun said:
I am a member of CB but not active, I buy a calendar every year that's about it. I take it you must also be into Bronco's also. The front radius arms are from James Duff.
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Yes I am. I have a couple. This site and CB are my 2 favorite sites.

I have a set sitting here waiting for me to install them. I need to get a couple other things done first.
 
pontiac428 said:
It's Ospho Rust. (yeah, I know Ospho vs. Oxpho is confusing, take it up with Brownell's). The Ospho rust is a lot better than plain naval jelly since it has chromic acid in it, but it's also kinda nasty stuff that should never be used unattended, and pity the foo who leaves something in it overnight. It blackens very well with heat. Pre-warming a part with a heat gun then dunking it is Ospho is rock and roll, and leaves a solid grey-black finish that takes Cerakote and selenium bluing very well.

Pity this foo who left his files in the solution on Friday evening to be found on Saturday morning. That foo was me. The files came out clean and etched sharp, but that is a lot of leaching of manganese from the metal matrix. Not recommended. This was intended to be a 60-minute treatment, but I am aging along with the rest of you. Consider it a goof to avoid.
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Got some ospho, prepped some handles and warm blued them with Brownell’s Oxpho blue. Fantastic results! thanks for the advice !
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OK, no more grumbling about software! ;)

So, been waiting for the optical flats to show up. They finally did, along with the monochromatic light source, sort of.

As green laser diodes are still hard to make, most green lasers are diode pumped 808nm->1064nm->532nm sources. Meaning they are very much monochromatic, with a known wavelength. Asian makers are selling them very cheap. Ordered a couple $20 'fat beam' 'dance' lasers. Ordered a green, and a 405nm also. The 405 is out for this projects, as expected the optical spectrometer shows it's not very narrow. The green is very narrow.

Power meter showed the green to be 112mW output. That's actually quite a bit scary, in a small laser, for $20. Part of that may be 1064nm and really bad for the eyes! Still waiting for the IR filters for this thing. However, curiosity got me and I pulled the front lens, and fitted a ping pong ball diffuser to give it a test run.

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Very nice green source. The laser speckle is very brilliant. (Yes it makes the cell phone camera puke! )

Setting one flat on the other is a good sanity check, and that looks pretty good. (Again the cell phone camera pukes, and the auto white balance turns what is a very very green image to a color image!!!)
Flats.jpg Square-Opt.jpg

Checking the cylinder square shows a pretty consistent high band dead center of the support surface. However, it's impossible to photograph with the phone. A white light look shows the high band, but it's hard to pick out the deviation as you approach the outside edge. It's maybe 4 bands of 532nm light. IIRC, that is 10 millionths per band, or maybe about 40 millionths curve across the support face. It looks very even overall, so some mild lapping may clean that up. Just need to start making and lapping in the lapping plates.
 
dkemppai said:
OK, no more grumbling about software! ;)

So, been waiting for the optical flats to show up. They finally did, along with the monochromatic light source, sort of.

As green laser diodes are still hard to make, most green lasers are diode pumped 808nm->1064nm->532nm sources. Meaning they are very much monochromatic, with a known wavelength. Asian makers are selling them very cheap. Ordered a couple $20 'fat beam' 'dance' lasers. Ordered a green, and a 405nm also. The 405 is out for this projects, as expected the optical spectrometer shows it's not very narrow. The green is very narrow.

Power meter showed the green to be 112mW output. That's actually quite a bit scary, in a small laser, for $20. Part of that may be 1064nm and really bad for the eyes! Still waiting for the IR filters for this thing. However, curiosity got me and I pulled the front lens, and fitted a ping pong ball diffuser to give it a test run.

View attachment 437865View attachment 437864
Very nice green source. The laser speckle is very brilliant. (Yes it makes the cell phone camera puke! )

Setting one flat on the other is a good sanity check, and that looks pretty good. (Again the cell phone camera pukes, and the auto white balance turns what is a very very green image to a color image!!!)
View attachment 437863 View attachment 437866

Checking the cylinder square shows a pretty consistent high band dead center of the support surface. However, it's impossible to photograph with the phone. A white light look shows the high band, but it's hard to pick out the deviation as you approach the outside edge. It's maybe 4 bands of 532nm light. IIRC, that is 10 millionths per band, or maybe about 40 millionths curve across the support face. It looks very even overall, so some mild lapping may clean that up. Just need to start making and lapping in the lapping plates.
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112mW of green is hazardous to the eye, never mind the IR. Why did you choose such a high powered device, it wasn't for this use was it? I mean it is pretty neat and all, but it's not needed for using on an optical flat, is it? Very nice set up, though.
 
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