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

So, what is that black box? It's a un-mess up die! To un-mess up something I royally messed up!
BlackBox.jpg

Needed a small section of tube to telescope over other another section 2" square tube. Couldn't easily locate anything, so figured I'd make one. How hard can it be, right? Cut some plate, take a section of tube, clamp everything up and shim for clearance plus some extra. I knew it would pull some as the welds cooled. Should have know it shrunk a lot, had to saw the 'form' tube out. Not good.

So, nothing to loose, figured I'd try make a die to drive through the tube to swedge it out. Took a block of mild steel, milled it to size, and milled a groove in the middle. The next step was to TIG some tool steel into the groove to just above the surface. That tool steel 'button' was ground to size, and the edges rounded on the belt sander.
ToolSteel.jpg

Last step was to grease up the tube and push it through with the press. After a little rework of the geometry of the leading edge of the button, it pushed through just fine. Took about 3T of force in the press after rework.
Press.jpg

It might have been faster to remake the tube, but I'm running low on plate right now, so this was a better option. It's a one off part so hard to justify a better way of making it.

Ugly welds not withstanding, it fits the square tube perfectly. This is a sliding drive feature to turn a square drive shaft for a project. So it needs to slide and rotate. The next step will be to chuck the tube in the lathe and knock the corners down so it will clearance fit into the 6916RS bearings. (The ugly parts of the weld will go away in that step). Bearing carriers, and sprocket are mount next.

ItFits.jpgEventually.jpg
 
Janderso said:
I've been using it with mixed results.
Do you heat up your parts to 120? or so??
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If I'm really wanting a black black, I hit it the parts with the heat gun and warm them. I find I get best results by rub-rub-rubbing with a wool dauber until the creme color goes from copper blue to nickel green (it's part of the reaction). Then I wipe and oil. If a part is stubborn, I burnish with steel wool, but that takes a gentle touch and you have to watch the edges and corners for breakthrough. The rubbing action seems to be the trick, you can see the blackening occur as you rub-rub-rub the dauber on the part! Color darkness develops overnight after oiling, too.
 
dkemppai said:
Yeah, tell that to the previous owner!


This one is replacing an old Craftsman 10' saw. This is a world of difference over that 25 yr old Craftsman. The old owner bought an umpteen horsepower $8K Sawstop cabinet saw, so this 'inferior' unit had to go. I'm happy to have it. (Price was really good.)


I do generally wax the tables on this type stuff with Johnson's paste wax. Seems to keep rust/discoloration off them. I'm guessing the butcher's wax is about the same???

I might have to get some liquid Teflon. Haven't used that before.
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pontiac428 said:
If I'm really wanting a black black, I hit it the parts with the heat gun and warm them. I find I get best results by rub-rub-rubbing with a wool dauber until the creme color goes from copper blue to nickel green (it's part of the reaction). Then I wipe and oil. If a part is stubborn, I burnish with steel wool, but that takes a gentle touch and you have to watch the edges and corners for breakthrough. The rubbing action seems to be the trick, you can see the blackening occur as you rub-rub-rub the dauber on the part! Color darkness develops overnight after oiling, too.
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I agree, rubbing the chemicals "in" helps - I think it removes any film that forms between the chemical and the metal surface due to the initial reaction. I also let the parts sit overnight coated with oil before wiping the excess; I use light machine oil, but others have said that used motor oil works best.
 
I finally finished my small wood workers square clamps for the machinists tool chest build. The last thing to do was the bending of the stainless steel rods to bridge the parts together.

20230225_121702.jpg

Now, when it warms up, I can start working on the tool chest again (epoxy vacuum chambers and filling voids and cracks).
 
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Janderso said:
I've been using it with mixed results.
Do you heat up your parts to 120? or so??
Click to expand...
i do warm the parts up with a heat gun probably 120-140 F. It seems to make the bluing react faster and more evenly. The pretreatment with Ospho was the thing that helped the most To get even consistent color. Finish with way oil and wipe dry.
 
I bought a nice 8" HV rotary table a while back and immediately regretted selling a tail stock a few months earlier. Well, in one of my "mystery auction lots" in December was a tail stock that should have gone with the 8" super spacer that was also in the auction. For some reason instead it ended up in my hands and I finally got round to cleaning it up and giving it a lick of paint.

This was productive procrastination while waiting for parts to fix my lathe dc drive :)

IMG20230226121042.jpg
 
woodchucker said:
I made nothing today, but I did shred some HDPE so I can show you what the paper shredder can do.
BTW, found out it's easier to turn the curl of the milk container down, so it grabs faster. I'm learning.. slowly.
View attachment 439271View attachment 439272
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That’s pretty impressive; while my shredder will handle credit cards, I don’t do it often and don’t think it would hold up to milk bottles.
 
ChazzC said:
That’s pretty impressive; while my shredder will handle credit cards, I don’t do it often and don’t think it would hold up to milk bottles.
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Or my Milwaukee storeage case. That's thick... real thick.
 
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