What have you done in your shop lately?

[FE427TP]

A week or so ago I saw that the LED task lighting the previous owner installed on my mill was rated 85-265v a.c. but he had been running it from 120v from a little power strip and I initially did the same thing. So I tapped off the load side of the ‘start’ contactor so that when the mill is on/enabled the task lighting is also. The contactor had enough space on the din rail to slide a couple 3 wire terminal blocks in next to it to simplify the wiring.




Right now I’m working on a mounting plate to put my lathe chuck onto the rotary table. Made a mandrel to fit a 3/4” collet and to match the mt2 opening on the top of the rotary table, the body of it is the center of the chuck bore and the adapter plate hole. I turned down a couple bolts and threaded them metric to match the cam bolts for the d1-5 spindle the mandrel will stay in the chuck/aluminum plate to locate it and I’m thinking 2 bolts will suffice for keeping it from spinning. I found that I didn’t thread one of them far enough so I’m going to reduce the shank behind the threads for 1/4” or so for the bolt to be able to fully seat them trim them to length.

 

[nnam]

Yesterday, I went to a used good store, like thrift or goodwill. I found an aluminum handle more than a feet long 1" OD and 0.083" thickness. Buying it would cost me maybe $15. Even better, it curves, which is what I needed, so I don't have to worry about bending this thing.

I also saw a bunch of candle holders or whateber they're called made of brass fir a few bucks. So I thought, what can they be used in a lathe? Maybe oiler cups? Small bushing? Hand tight screw brass shims for various axis turing hand wheels' zeroed colars.

I don't know, what do you think? They are really cheap for brass, I think.

 

[Mikkell]

I'm in the Process of building a Gear holding Device for cutting gears VIA Thunderdog Designs on YouTube. Simple and affective design. Far easier than a Dividing head and miles cheaper.
Here's the link if you want to check it out.

 

[nnam]

I'm in the Process of building a Gear holding Device for cutting gears VIA Thunderdog Designs on YouTube. Simple and affective design. Far easier than a Dividing head and miles cheaper.

That's a neat way to do it. I coudn't see how he does the verticle alignment.If it's fixed, then does he rely on shimmming the bottom?

 

[Mikkell]

It does look good, I had to watch it over and over to completely figure it out.

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

That's a neat way to do it. I coudn't see how he does the verticle alignment.If it's fixed, then does he rely on shimmming the bottom?

That's a good quick and dirty example of using change gears to cut other gears, and yes if you want to trade time for money (time to build it vs. buying a real dividing head) it makes a lot of sense! The book "Dividing" by Harold Hall has a build of a more serious version of this in chapter 7. The book also has a lot of other "tricks" for dividing.

If you go this route - There is a good trick you can do to double the number of gears you can cut: If you notch the indexing pin, it can reference both the tops and valleys of the change gear. The pin shape is like a screw driver to index between the teeth. If you rotate the pin 90 deg and carefully notch it, you can also index the on the teeth. Hence a 40 tooth change gear can make an 80 tooth gear. You need to get the notch centered on the pin -it can be tweaked with a file to get it just right.

-Dave

 

[Creativechipper]

My current indexing is a shish kabob stick with a mark on one end so the same side is always up and a bubble level hanging in line on the other end of the stick. I can rotate my 3 jaw until one jaw is completely level, gives me 6 refrences, maybe I need a 6 jaw next..lol

 

[savarin]

I followed this one

Cut a lathe change gear

Cut a lathe change gear

users.tpg.com.au

Very simple to make

 

[nnam]

Today, I did something that I think it's a bit crazy and I would like to share. I need a parting tool. I ordered it, but I can't wait.
I need to cut two rings of thin aluminum. People said a dull knife would cut aluminum. Ok. What can I do? Maybe take a HSS bit and trim it into a parting bit? Too much work, but very tempting.

After thinking for a while and sudden, a light lit up in my head, why not use a spade drill bit. It's just thin aluminum tubing.

So I took one, ground it and cut a few test. It worked. I cut two real rings. Then I thought, why not cut a solid piece of aluminum. This is 7/8" diameter I think. Near half way, the bit bent down and I stopped. Here's a picture:



I didn't have a good backing inside the ring, so they broke off a bit early. I will just need to file them down. I don't think it's because of the bit.
If I had patient, I would put a very tight rod inside the tube to tight down the chuck harder and also have a good backing, but I was a bit impatient.

 

[nnam]

Last night and this evening I took the mill's bed apart and cleaned up the gibs on both x and y axis. All screws and holes are cleaned up. I put them back and made sure all are nice and tight. The lead screw has a split and an adjuster screw wedge the split to remove backlash (only on X axis having it). I put it back and tried doing a face mill again with a 63 mm cutter. Before doing it, the cut was showing circular ridges. Now, it's must better. I still see circular pattern, but no deep ridges. It's a hard piece of steel. Last night I thought the mill was junk. But I did some fine adjustment to the gibs and it improved a lot. Maybe someday I would scrape the dovetails. Getting the tool is probably expensive though.