Todays Project - What did you do today?

[Mayhem]

I didn't have a lot of time in the shop over the weekend, so I was looking at some of the projects I have on the go. The burner for my furnace has been put on hold mainly due to the total fire ban we have here.

I decided that I would cut the hole for the blower tube. I have some 2" OD pipe that I am going to use, so I set the burner tube up on the drill press, setting the angle of the table to 45°. It wasn't the easiest set up and I ended up having to make a quick and dirty angle plate. Fortunately I had the material in stock. The rectangular pieces already had holes in them and all I had to do to the triangular pieces was trim them to length.

   

   

   

   

EDIT: to fix a typo

[PixMan]

Spent less than an hour in the shop today. I made one spacer out of 316 stainless steel. It's Ø 35mm O.D. x Ø 20.25 I.D. x 14.5mm long. Notice the 0.5mm deep relief on the smaller O.D.. Tricky little feature to get with no chatter marks, but the 2mm wide groove-turn-cutoff tool I used worked great.



BTW Darren, those are some VERY nice looking welds. They appear to had deep weld preps and penetration. reminds me of some sub-arc welded parts I used to work with. The welds were 1-1/4" deep, and prior to beginning the process they welded on 3" long pieces of angle iron to each end of the weld pass so they'd have full height welds right to the end of the blocks. I had to machine everything flush and square after they torch but most of the angle iron off.

Your drill press (pillar drill) is also very nice to have that swivel. I'll have to look and see if mine can do that. I haven't seen it out in the open in years. It's buried in that wood shed outside the shop.

[Mayhem]

Thanks Ken, I bevelled the edges on all the joints. I had left my MIG at my place, along with my auto darkening helmet. That was done with a stick welder with a hand held mask! I'm a little out of practice with the stick and there is a butt ugly weld on the other side!

[f350ca]

Ever have those days where you loose stuff?
Was feeding down on the mill, and felt the handle slip. Odd. Tear it apart and the key is gone, WHERE, its in a captive keyway, and it didn't shear. So I file a new one to fit, set it on the mill vice, clean up a couple of things go to put it in and its gone, no where to be found, searched around with a magnet no sign of it, Made another and got the mill back in operation. Ok the second one means I need to clean the shop but can't believe that quill handle has been working without a key all these years so where'd the first one go.

[EdK]

I want to know where the second one went. The first one may have never existed.

Ed

[f350ca]

Trust me Ed I'd sure like to know where the second one went.

[Mayhem]

I recall my Dad tearing his shop apart to find a small spring out of a transmission he was rebuilding. After a couple of hours of searching, he called it a night. Whilst getting out of his work clothes, he noticed that it had fallen into the turn-ups on his trousers!

[PixMan]

Today was several projects, I spent a total of about 5 hours in the shop. A rare day for me to get that much time in there!

First order of business was to broach the 6mm keyway on the change gears I'd made and had a fellow PM member cut the teeth. I had borrowed the broach from a shop owner friend of mine. I had pinged Russ via text last night hoping he might be working in his shop today. His arbor presses are usually open and sit near the door, but alas, this was one of his few Saturday's off in some time. Here's the gears and the broach, with the broaching bushing I made last night:




Well, I guess it was time to clear out some junk from the 10'x16' shed my dad had built about ten years ago, just outside the shop. Mostly woodworking machines and supplies in there, plus yard work implements. The arbor press he'd bought back around 2002 is buried in the corner, been used just a couple of times. Here's the arbor press. Not too bad for a Chinese version of what I'd rather own but can't find at an affordable price, a Greenerd!



After I broached them it occurred to me that none of the gears which came with the machine have any identifying marks, so I saw fit to stamp the number of teeth on each one I had made. Yeah, I double-stamped the 70, no big deal because it'll work. And the results:



After I'd got all that done I started back to work on Neil's custom motorcycle pieces. I milled the hex on the long axle I'd made a week or so back, then Neil showed up to help. We had three different length bolts to make, two different thread sizes. I turned the 2 longer ones while he watched, then set to milling the hexes on those while he made the shortest one. These came out beautiful in 316 stainless steel. Though tough to work with, it's gratifying to see how pretty the parts can be. The original steel ones had a concave recess in the heads, so I took a 1" 2-insert carbide ball end mill I have and centered it in the lathe. I put it in a boring bar holder for the QCTP, swept it into concentric with the spindle and plunged it into the ends of the bolts. It did leave a little pip at the center, short work for a round mounted point (grinding wheel) in a Dremel.



The shortest of the bolts was too short to turn around in the chuck to cut off the center hole and face clean, so I quickly made an aluminum bushing and split one wall with a hacksaw. ten minute job, done. If I can get back over there tomorrow I'll change to the metric threading setup, remount the collet closer mechanism and thread the bolts.

[TomG]

Nice job on the gears Ken. That press is the perfect size for broaching, mine always seem to be just a bit short of having enough capacity.

I spent a couple hours in the shop today, but a good part of my day was spent digging out from the latest snow dump AGAIN. It's getting to the point where there is no longer room to pile it and there is a lot more on the way. We set a new record last month with 39.1 inches of the fluffy white stuff and it's getting pretty old.

Tom

[PixMan]

I feel for you Tom. It was winter two years ago that we set new records, with over 111 inches of it for that winter where I am.