Made a thin bushing

[toprecycler]

Originally Posted by toprecycler

That was factory stop. It is attached to the front of the vice when not in use. Took me a couple years to realize what it was, and maybe a video of someone else. I think I was the first one in my shop to know what it was for.

It’s painted yellow to match my color coded Allen wrench holder, so I can quickly grab the right size Allen. Attachment 167170


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Here’s a better closeup picture of the Kurt vise stop.




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[toprecycler]

The struggle of getting old is getting real. Eyesight is getting weak. I have had bifocals the last two years, and even though I have struggled with keeping them in focus, I have become used to them.

Last week I turned them back in to the eye doctor to get the lenses warranty replace due to scratches, so I am using and an old regular pair of glasses. I am constantly adjusting the glasses to the end of my nose to bring things close up in focus, and pushing them back up to see things far away. . Reminds me of the old folks I would see do that when I was a kid.

So now I have rigged up a magnifying glass on my work flash light to see some small parts I’m making, last operation in the mill. I have to drill four holes, .100” diameter, at a 45 degree to the part axis, each rotated 90 degrees around the small nozzle.

Order was for 6 pieces. I made about 13, and 3 of them was out of tolerance on lathe operation, so those became my set up test pieces in the mill. I’m wishing I had a 2.5mm spotting drill to help locate the .100” drill. Instead I’m using a 1/8” center drill, which is not allowing me to get the hole as close to the flange taper as I want, but hopefully will be good enough for this job.

Customer ordered 6 of these 2 years ago, so it probably will be another 2-3 years before I get the order again. Guess I better put in job notes to order that 2.5mm spotting drill next time. I do not want to wait to finish job now.





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[greywynd]

Sometimes a centre cutting, ball nose end mill works well for angled stuff like that. Or a centre cutting endmill/slotdrill if you have something the right size.

I’ve also made extended shank drills, by going larger on the shank size (say 3/8” or 1/2”) and ‘choking up’ on the exposed smaller size drill or centre drill, they can be stiffened up a lot to prevent wandering.


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[Ironman]

For that I would use a 1/8" endmill to create a flat surface first, and then the center drill will not want to move.

[toprecycler]

Originally Posted by Ironman

For that I would use a 1/8" endmill to create a flat surface first, and then the center drill will not want to move.

That would be the best way for sure. I just wanted to save steps and short cut it as much as possible. I guess by the time it was all said and done, I had 15 plus hours in this batch, of 8 good parts. 5 other ones are probably good enough, if I use the standard .010” tolerance listed in the drawing, but for some reason, I thought they might need tolerances tighter. Hopefully I will be able to question the guy when he picks them up as to how critical the dimensions really are in the machine.


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[toprecycler]

Originally Posted by toprecycler

That would be the best way for sure. I just wanted to save steps and short cut it as much as possible. I guess by the time it was all said and done, I had 15 plus hours in this batch, of 8 good parts. 5 other ones are probably good enough, if I use the standard .010” tolerance listed in the drawing, but for some reason, I thought they might need tolerances tighter. Hopefully I will be able to question the guy when he picks them up as to how critical the dimensions really are in the machine.


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Update, boss came to me after customer picked up the 8 good parts. He was asking to see other 5 parts I had saved but felt they were out of tolerance. I guess he talked to the customer and thought they should work fine for intended purposes, and took those to send to the customer. He felt much better about sending the customer 12 parts for the time I had in them.


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[toprecycler]

I took an hour and half to make (probably closer to little over 2 hours, but had mill going same time as I was working the lathe, going back and forth) to make a chuck spider, I believe they are known as.

I made a smaller one a while back. It creates a flat spot to push parts up against the chuck face, to help keep them true. First one was only 1/4” thick, so I had about 1-3/4” gripping of Chuck jaws. This one sticks out 1-3/4” so I can only hold on the outer 1/4” of the chuck jaws. But this allows me to also use the tailstock center to push in and makes things much less hairy when turning larger parts holding only 1/4”. I turn a lot of cylinder heads that I have only this much to hold onto in order to turn the barrel threads, seal grooves, etc.

Customer was replacing the seals themselves on a wood forester machine, and the head locked up when they were putting it together. Had about 1/2” left to go to finish tightening the head. They sent us the cylinder to fix. After we tried to move the head with a four foot pipe wrench, with an 6’ cheater bar with a 250# guy, and it’s not budging, we decided to machine the base out of Cylinder, so then we could get access to remove the piston from rod assembly, and then I could machine the head from the barrel, to make a new one.

First I used the old Libby to machine the base off. The 10” thru spindle and four jaw Chuck comes in handy for this. This saves from cutting off rod eye in order to Chuck up in smaller lathe to hold cylinder. And since I started using the Libby, I can’t remember when the last time the welder plasma gouged a base off to do this repair. It makes for a nicer prep for rewelding.

So then I machined the old head out of the barrel in my smaller lathe using a steady rest. I only did it here and not the Libby because I figured the barrel was metric threads, and in case I needed to chase the threads. But it the head was galling into the sealing area, which caused the head to lock up. We will blame the customer for this.

So, now to the part to where this spider comes into play. We will sometimes cut a raw piece of stock an extra 1/4-3/8” longer to have a bit more holding in the chuck, but this takes longer to machine off later, and wastes more material. I had to use 6” cast iron, so this would have been a good added chuck of time anyways. And when I am fitting a head to existing barrel, there is a lot of test fits, pulling the head out, and then trying to put it back in exactly to keep the same thread lined up, getting the thread to fit right. ( especially if I have to take a light cut cleaning the barrel threads, making them oversized)

The spider allowed me to only put the head in only 1/4” in the jaws, and I put the tailstock holding it against the spider. So I had no worries about it coming out, and I was able to take heavier rough cuts. And putting it back in after a test fit was so much quicker, vs time before I might have to indicate part straight each time in the past.

This job got billed for this chuck assessor , but it will be used a lot in the future. Also, I used an old saved piston for the Chuck spider. I keep an assortment of old cylinder parts on the shelf for shop tools as needed. Hence why I built the wall shelves behind the mill so I can find what I am looking for quickly.









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[toprecycler]

A screw I made for a friend at church. He is a retired machinist/ tool maker. He sold me sone of his tools a year ago. But he has no metalworking tools at home now, so he asked me if I could make a part for him. I forgot exactly what it is for, but he needed a combination of the two dark screws in the new one. I think it cane out pretty well. It will be great if the screw threads actually screw in, since I did not that part to verify.

So I used my thread wires to measure the PD. I’m within a couple thousand, so it should work. Funny thing, I figured out that the one new screw had two different pitches on the threads. Both 5/16”, but end threads were 32tpi, while the ones by screw head were 28tpi. I’m guessing they messed up programming the CNC making them. I made them both to 32tpi, after I verified with friend.

Glad I got some slitting saws in my former mentors tools. First time using one to make the slot. I even had to resort to using some wood to hold the part for final milling of flat spots on end of screw.








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[Lew Hartswick]

< Both 5/16”, but end threads were 32tpi, while the ones by screw head were 28tpi. >
I'd almost bet that is some sort of a "differential" thread device. I've built a lot of them but usually one thread goes inside the other. Very handy for fine adjustments.
...lew...

[toprecycler]

Well, the screw was to have both pitch of threads. I will get to try again.


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