Todays Project - What did you do today?

[dallen]

(01-03-2014, 09:33 AM)TomG Wrote: Looking good David. The radii are just for looks so there's no reason why you couldn't just round them on the belt sander.

That's a nice looking knurl on the thimble.

Tom

Thanks Tom I did the knurl with the knurler I made sometime back, i did push it in a little deep so it has some points on it that need the touch of a fine tooth file.

(01-03-2014, 01:00 PM)stevec Wrote: David, is there any locking mechanism for that nicely done thimble?

Steve the thimble is almost identical to the one that Tom posted on his site, so the only thing for a lock will be a spring and ball to hold tension on the Thimble but if needed I can always spin up a lock nut for the back end of the Spindle to lock it with.

DA

[stevec]

Ya, another of those nicely knurled nuts would do it.

[dallen]

(01-03-2014, 07:55 PM)stevec Wrote: Ya, another of those nicely knurled nuts would do it.

here's a shot of the stop on the lathe, I'm pretty much done with it now, only thing left is the vernier scale on the thimble which I don't know if I will do or not. If I do the scale I'll also at that time put a larger radius on the front edges of the housing so that they match the Thimble which will make it a little easier to get one's thumb on it to make adjustments.

Steve I don't think it will really need a lock, I don't do production runs, it works nice and easy but also has some stiffness to it that will keep it from spinning while the lathe is running. if it needs anything else I would say a clear cover over the thimble to keep grit out of the thimble area would be what it needs.

[PixMan]

Looks good other than that you really should engrave graduations on the thimble, round off more (as you said) and add the second clamping screw that seems to be missing.

My project for today was to take the smallest of the axles I'd made for Neil (expat) and re-do the milling of the hex. We had sort of "over polished" it on the Norton Beartex deburring wheel, so the 5/8" (.625") hex was looking a bit too rounded off.

I put it back into the 5C collet spin indexer on my milling machine. It took longer to line it up and check it than it did to mill it down to 15mm (.5906") using a 3/4" Kennametal 3-insert shoulder milling cutter.

I don't have a "before" photo, but here's what it looks like now. Just a quick shot done with my mobile phone.

[TomG]

Looking good David.

The graduations on the carriage are the whole point of the carriage stop so you should definitely add them. A locking screw is not at all necessary if you use the ball and spring to put drag on the thimble. I was looking at mine this morning and there is no way the thimble will move unless you purposely move it. The problem with locking screws and nuts is that they tend to move what they are locking. The ball and spring prevents all that.

I'm actually out in the shop right now shooting the next video for the tutorial, on making the spindle. The thimble is next, along with the set-up for cutting the graduations and stamping the numbers, but you'll probably be finished by the time I get around to doing it.

Tom

[dallen]

probably not, I'm slow

I was able to round off the front end of it before the shop monster wanted to go get some Chinese food.

[awemawson]

I have to say that graduations are irrelevant for the way I use my carriage stop. I touch off on the end of the work with the tool (ie Z direction) zero the DRO, then use the DRO to set the carriage stop. When within a thou or so, lock it to the bed and use the thimble to set exactly where I want. I'm probably not even looking at the thimble as I turn it !

Andrew

[EdK]

Very nice David. One suggestion though. Ease those sharp edges, especially those back corners. They'll bite you eventually. Mine did anyway.

Ed

[Mayhem]

Nice work Dave - that is a nice looking stop.

Great looking both there Ken. I'm glad to see you are embracing Metric

[PixMan]

(01-04-2014, 09:38 PM)Mayhem Wrote: Nice work Dave - that is a nice looking stop.

Great looking both there Ken. I'm glad to see you are embracing Metric

Perhaps I never mentioned that I've been working in metric for YEARS. Most commonly I have to convert back to inch simply because that's what all the machines here are setup to use with their graduations. Worse, the CNC machines I worked on for year had to be programmed in inch mode. Although the controls could easily be switched to display metric and operate that way (G20 mode on Fanuc controls), it wouldn't usually work on any machine that used internal macro programs for canned cycles. Almost all of them do use macros now.

When Neil and I were making his axles on my lathe though, I put the DRO in metric mode and ran everything except the compound feed on the threading operation that way.