Spinning Tops

rwm said:
One of our members recently piqued my interest in tops so I thought I might make a few. These would be great gifts as well especially if you have younger children in your world.

First check out some of the incredible machining and design aesthetics here:

https://www.billetspin.com/home/

Here's my attempt. Still waiting on bearings. I ordered some SiN balls.

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These are both stainless flywheels with interference fit aluminum shafts.

R
Click to expand...
Where did you order the SiN Balls? My Google search returned some disconcerting results.
 
Amazon had the 1/4" ten in a package. Prime. $14.
Got to figure out the 0.246 reamer though. Any thoughts?
Robert
 
Instead of a reamer, could you just grind a HSS boring tool (really small one!) from a 1/4" blank and drill undersize hole and bore hole to desired width? you would not have to take much off or go very deep??
 
1/8" Inch G5 Precision Si3N4 Silicon Nitride Ceramic Bearing from amazon is what's in mine.

1/8 inch center drill, depending on depth, it will usually just press fit. If not, just a drop of super glue.

photo I just took of mine all spinning at once. Still trying to perfect them.

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This may be crazy but I am going to try to use a tool post grinder in the lathe to take a couple thou off a 1/4" reamer. Will that work?
BTW. I have a 10 cm lens coming that will fit perfectly on that aluminum piston.
I could make a micro boring bar but it might be hard to measure the hole accuartely.
Robert
 
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rwm said:
I could make a micro boring bar but it might be hard to measure the hole accuartely.
Robert
Click to expand...
See the thread I started on boring small holes. I bought a micro boring bar and while I was able to get a hole to accept a pressed in bearing, measuring was CRAZY hard!! I have a bore gage for practice. I'm using Starrett small hole gages. It's really challenging. So challenging, that I ended up ordering a .1865 + .0002" go pin gage and a .1874 - .0002" nogo gage as an alternative to the small hole gage.
 
Planning to make some red brass. 85-5-5-5.

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I have about 1.8 kilo of Cu. I have weighed out about 110 g of Pb (from an xray tube) Sn from eBay, and Zn from the usual source. That ugly chunk top left is mystery brass that I am assuming is about 70/30 Cu/Zn. I will add about a kilo of that for volume and that will dilute my concentrations a little. That will be OK as long as there is no Si in it which I doubt. Some of the Zn will burn out during melting too. There is some solder on the pipe which is probably Sn-Sb? I will be happy if I end up around 85,8,4,4. If I can get all the copper into solution this will look really red. The lead will be at least 3% which will help with machinability.
Any thoughts from you metallurgists out there?
Robert
 
Yes sir. All 2.5% copper. I'm sure this won't turn as nice as extruded bar, but I'm hoping it is acceptable.
R
 
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