Todays Project - What did you do today?

[PixMan]

Nice work Ed.

Tell me about the finish, it looks as though it were done on a surface grinder with a coarse wheel. It could be just the lighting and the way the photo was made though.

[EdK]

(11-07-2012, 10:10 PM)PixMan Wrote: Nice work Ed.

Tell me about the finish, it looks as though it were done on a surface grinder with a coarse wheel. It could be just the lighting and the way the photo was made though.

Ken,

I got the material from Kaoma. He said it was a SS strap that's used as an electrical grounding strap, I'm assuming for cell phone towers since he works on them for a living. I've never worked with SS before so I put a magnet to it and it didn't stick and then I did a couple of exploratory drilled holes and was surprised as to how easily it drilled. It almost drilled like it was aluminum and looked like chrome plated aluminum but I'm pretty sure you can't chrome plate aluminum. So I went ahead and started milling them out and it milled easily. I took a file to it to deburr the edges then I knew it must be SS because the file did not take a very good bite out of it. I'm guessing it's 303 SS. Anyway, one side has a brushed finish as seen in the picture and the other side is flat and shinny, like it was chrome plated.

Ed

[sasquatch]

Made one last trip to my deceased friends old shop today that is being cleaned out as the bank is changing the locks on monday.
Picked up a few more #1 M/T drill bits, a few more jobbers length bits, (These things were lying in the junk on the floor,) And then bought a Screw Press with a 2in dia screw they were going to scrap, it is on a HEAVY shop built base that must weigh 200lbs.
(It was a nasty lift for two of us to get it up into the back of my truck.
Also got a sweet little 3in four jaw chuck from the Watson MFG co. that fits the "Baby Grand" lathe they built at one time many years ago.

[f350ca]

Started filling the wood shed today.
Some interesting values (inquiring minds need to know)
I have about 6.75 cords in there now or 20.25 face cords of mostly red oak.
At 24 million btu / cord thats 162 million btu.
The equivalent to 1162 gallons of No 2 heating oil.
If I fill it to 6 feet high it would hold 9 cord or 27 face cord.
216 million btu
or 1550 gal of No2
At about $1.28 per liter at the pump, thats $5.12 / gal or $7900 for the equivalent in oil.
I got about 25 face cord out of the last load of logs for $850
25/27 * $7900 = $7350 for the equivalent in oil.
So I heat for 11% the cost of oil, assuming similar efficiencies in a furnace and my boiler,

[dallen]

thats a lot of wood glad I heat with natural gas.

I made this little part

   

[sasquatch]

Greg, i can see you are a deep thinker!! Lol

Dallen, ok what is the part for?

Me? i went to get my annual "Flu Shot", had a visit with the guys at the welding/fab shop, drank a few coffees and told a bunch of lies.

[dallen]

toggle link for an 1885 winchester highwall rifle

[stevec]

I decided to work on some shop organization today, so I thought " why grovel through a box of 5C collets every time I want to grind a

tool or sharpen an end mill?" I got out he full set of collets I have and layed out a pattern of 2 rows.

I worked out some dimensions and rough cut a piece of ½" lexan (in inventory)'

I cleaned up the sides in the mill then set up to step out 2 rows of 8 1¼" holes for the collets.

Then I started figuring the best way to cut the holes.
I started with a 1" hole saw followed by a 1¼" 2 insert carbide end mill that I had.


It was a tight 1¼" so I adopted a teeny fly cutter with a tool set to a "large" 1¼".

The hole saw hole was fine except for the fact that even with coolant and frequent chip clearing there was still a "slug" that had to
be "punched" out from both side slots.

So I switched to a the shortest "large" drill I had
    (I'm trying to keep the procedure from one hole to the next as smooth as
possible.) Ooops ther's a shot of my homemade European lager.
and followed with a countersink     and then a router bit     that brought me back to the point where my little flycutter/    

boring tool gave me the finish and size I wanted.
We're down to 4 tools but at least no height changes.

A little bravado and I decided I could eliminate the "wrongly used" router bit with a little grind on the fly cutter tool.
Success, we're down to 3 tool changes no spindle speed changes and no up and down for the knee.
Here's the rack on the wall behind the T&C grinder.
   

[EdK]

(11-14-2012, 06:08 PM)stevec Wrote: Here's the rack on the wall behind the T&C grinder

Steve,

Can you send me that recipe for the European lager? It must be pretty good because I can't see "the rack on the wall behind the T&C grinder".

Thanks,
Ed

[stevec]

Ed, would you take a break! I'm trying to load it up but I'm just as slow as I am in the shop!