Todays Project - What did you do today?

[PixMan]

Got back from Waukesha WI around midnight last night. Spent about 4 hours in the shop today trying to finish up quick small jobs.

Started by finishing the 316ss motorcycle handlebar ends Neil had roughed out. Made a steel arbor to mount them to, touched up an existing brazed carbide corner rounding tool, set the compound on the lathe to about 4-1/2º (indicator match to the existing sample), turned the tapers and radii. Then made a couple of 1-1/2" long 8mm pins with 12mm heads, showed Neil how to use an edgefinder and how to use my Albrecht sensitive drill chuck to drill the cotter/split pin holes in the pins. He made the pair of 6mm pins with 10mm heads.

We also had to drill/mill out a broken stainless steel screw from one of the two cylinders from his Yamaha RZ350 bike motor. We stripped the Kurt vise off the mill, set up an 8" precision angle iron, and strapped the sleeved aluminum water-jacketed cylinder housing to it, tipped the head of the Alliant mill to match the angle of the hole we had to fix. It looked OK with spotting it, but drilled a little off center. I used a 13/64" center cutting 4-flute solid carbide end mill to clean out the broken M6 screw. Success!

Of course without pictures none of it ever happened. Neil can vouch for me, or if you don't believe it I don't care. ;)

[Mayhem]

(06-07-2014, 08:33 PM)PixMan Wrote: ...Of course without pictures none of it ever happened. Neil can vouch for me, or if you don't believe it I don't care. ;)

I don't care if you don't care but I still want to see the pictures!

[PixMan]

Perhaps I can get Neil to post some photos. He went home with all the parts. I went home exhausted.

[PixMan]

Well, another day of not riding my motorcycle while it's over 80ºF, but got (hopefully) the last of the M/C parts done so I can kill the next 10 to 12 shop hours making that Kondia machine part for Darren.

If Neil needs any more, it'll be up to him to run the machines himself, though only the lathe and surface grinder will be available.

Here's two 316ss washers, Ø1.420" x Ø0.320" x 0.100" thick, with a Ø.560" x 0.030" counterbore.


And a 316ss Ø1.501 x 1.344" long disk brake piston. The original, pictured next to it, was corroded badly where the piston is exposed to the elements. That causes repeated seal failures. When I picked up the original it seemed lighter than is should be for a solid piston, yet I could see no signs of welded construction. After making the new one, I asked the customer if I could cut the old one open to see why it didn't weigh any more than the one I made with a Ø1-1/8" x 1-1/8" deep bore.

After cutting into it with a Kennametal 3/4" 3-insert should mill, the "cover" popped out, jammed and busted an insert. I should be able to fix the cutter, but damaging the cutter for the sake of curiosity wasn't worth it. Hindsight is 20/20.




Neil has some photos of yesterday's work. He said he'd post them later.

[f350ca]

Spent a couple of evenings with my son machining a stem for his bike. A piece of mystery metal from an aircraft plant, hard enough it rings when you tap it. Nice stuff to machine.

[PixMan]

Looks nice! Probably 7075 aluminum.

[TomG]

I've machined quite a bit of aluminum for aircraft work and if it was nice to machine, it was likely 2024-T351. It cuts easily and unlike 6061, the chips actually break.

Tom

[Mayhem]

Simple little job for my Mum today. The plastic (?Bakelite) ball on her wood burning stove fell off. The threads stripped out. I tuned down a 9.9mm shaft and drilled and threaded the 5/16-18 to fit the lever. Knurled the outside and pressed it into a 10mm hole with some high strength Loc-Tite.

   
   
   

[DaveH]

Nicely done - perfect

DaveH

[Hawkeye]

I decided to try to make a mist coolant gizmo, loosely based on some I've seen on the internet. The main push for this was getting a flood coolant nozzle with magnetic base through the local tool store.

Some that I've seen use two pressure regulators. One for the air flow at the nozzle, one to pressurize the liquid supply bottle. I decided to try using just one, mostly because I didn't buy a second one when it was on sale recently. Mine uses one regulator to adjust the air flow through the nozzle, with that pressure also entering the bottle to push the coolant out. The tube coming vertically out of the brass fitting carries the liquid to the nozzle.
   

Rather than mix air and coolant before they go down the flexible tube to the nozzle, I ran a thin nylon tube down the middle of the flex to carry coolant to the nozzle itself. I filed three notches around the opening of the original nozzle to allow good air flow out past the thin tube. There is also an insert made from 1/16" O.D. brass tubing in the end of the tube to restrict the flow.
   

I made up an aluminum block to allow mounting of the flex tube and connect the air and coolant lines. In my first attempt, I used the valve that came with the nozzle assembly. Leaked like a sieve. The screw on the top of the fitting is a needle valve I made from a bolt, to regulate the amount of coolant coming out.
   

Today, I picked up a small needle valve at the hardware store and reworked the regulator stage. Now there are no leaks and I can turn the coolant flow as low as I want.
   

I haven't tried machining with it yet. I'm going to work out a better method of hanging the supply bottle so the rig can be easily moved from machine to machine. Reports from other builders indicate that coolant usage is quite low. I'm using a semi-synthetic water-soluble oil for my first trials.