What are you machining?

[Hood]

I have been doing a few of the steering joints recently as all are getting on for 4 or 5 years old and are rattling.

The original ends I designed had a circular pocked that a ball end fitted into which allowed full rotation in the horizontal plane and about 40 degrees in the vertical.

Pic of the original.

As said they wear through time and although still very secure the slackness and noise is a nuisance.
So my next idea was to have acetal inserts which has two benefits, firstly they can be replaced when worn but also they hold the ball end fully rather than just in a few places.
When I get the old ones I machine a square pocket in them.

I can then insert the lower bush.

Then once at the boat I can fit the ball end steering rod in and fit the second bush (test ball end in this image)

Finally the lid is put back on and all is good to go.
The first ones I did with the acetal bushes were over a year ago and they are still fine so looks like the bushes are lasting well.

 

[Hood]

Some spare bushes made.

Also a retracting end for a hinged handrail.

 

[Dapph2]

not allowed to deviate from the drawing in any way...took long enough to convince the engineer that filling a 2mm gap with a 3mm packing shim wasnt going to work, id hate to see how long it would take to convince him to spend 500 quid on a pack of spare studs or even change the purchase order to include 1 spare per unit...used to work for them in a different department and they have some very strange approaches to engineering, nothing is simple and nowhere near cost effective, but they have some very good sales reps...i left when i became an apprentice in another factory, i was in college with their now head engineer of the department in question and he manages to be on annual leave for every important meeting, much like in college when there was always something better to do than actually learn how parts were made. the same engineer is responsible for changing the supplier of the stainless nuts that are used, and since that change there have apparently been a large number of issues with damaged threads on parts right across the department.

That little stud looks very much like a simple stainless steel sleeve anchor bolt used to fix into concrete or brick .

 

[BrokenBiker]

That little stud looks very much like a simple stainless steel sleeve anchor bolt used to fix into concrete or brick .

very similar. i drew it in fusion to find the actual angle of the taper and it is 3.9 degrees, not sure if that means anything but basically, each component made must have 1 of these specific bolts as the taper helps seat an aluminum collar into the panel, then forms a tight connection for the earth strap, but they only provide 1 and in this instance it broke and as they all go through an external visual inspection before being signed off it couldnt be replaced with anything that didnt look spot on. mine was so close that after my father fitted it, he put the tray on a pallet with a few others and promptly forgot which one it was and couldnt tell from looking at them.

 

[nickk]

Customer returned the two suspension units as more of the casting needed removal,down to 20mm,this time I found my angle plate and although 25mm too short a suitable packer was placed underneath,annoyingly I had to make a m12 hole on the table to bolt it.

 

[Hood]

Ordered a rotary broach and a couple of 5mm broaches from China so decided to make up some parking brake pins from 316 stainless, only need 2 but made up 8 as I will likely screw up a few before I get the hang of the broaching, either that or the rotary broach or broaching tool may disintegrate

 

[dieselsamurai]

Will be interesting to see how that works out on stainless , ive been tempted to get one of those from china for a while now . Not massively tricky to make one but time invested in doing it way more than ordering one from the far east

 

[Hood]

Will be interesting to see how that works out on stainless , ive been tempted to get one of those from china for a while now . Not massively tricky to make one but time invested in doing it way more than ordering one from the far east

Yes, always been saying I will make one but never get round to it so bit the bullet and bought a Chinese one.

 

[MattF]

Yes, always been saying I will make one but never get round to it so bit the bullet and bought a Chinese one.

Let us know how you get on with it.

 

[Brad93]

Ordered a rotary broach and a couple of 5mm broaches from China so decided to make up some parking brake pins from 316 stainless, only need 2 but made up 8 as I will likely screw up a few before I get the hang of the broaching, either that or the rotary broach or broaching tool may disintegrate

View attachment 503838

Those are very smart

 

[Dapph2]

Switched my lathe on in anger and turned up a flanged guide plate for my industrial Royobi router . The plate of the guide was some scrap 1/4 "5x5 stanchion foot plate from a partly demolished burnt out industrial building . Utter rubbish steel about as consistent for turning as lumpy diarrhea. it kept turning in fits and starts or better put in Sh**s and *arts , I found the e center then bunged a 6.98 mm hole in it and attached it to a mandril . scribed a 1 mm deep diameter line then cut off much of the unwanted excess with an angle grinder before turning it in to a finished 2.98 " disc. the tunnel part 1"Id 1.5OD by 1 & 1/2 long is a scrap phosphor bronze bearing bush carrier from my 80 yr old lathe ..I replaces both cross shaft bushes as they were badly scored by the PO and asked Fizzy to turn up a pair of very accurate high speed bearing carriers as replacements. This carrier steel turned like a dream like a hot knife through butter and gave up a beautiful finish .
Turned one end to be a push fit in the base plate , lovely job. ( Like a sausage in the black wall tunnel . I will weld it up to morrow after carefully putting in two half dia 5mm counter sink locating holes ( should have done this before turning to the 2.98 diameter and just turned off half of the counter sunk locating holes.)

 

[Dr.Al]

Some early-morning milling done at 4.30am before the heat of the day got too much to be down that end of the workshop:

 

[RichardM]

Nice cool breeze at the moment.

 

[ukracer]

Some early-morning milling done at 4.30am before the heat of the day got too much to be down that end of the workshop:

View attachment 504284

whats that for then?

 

[Dapph2]

Just as I was about to take that welded guide plate out my Record number 2 vice there was an almighty bang , the guide fell to the floor .

I couldn't work out what had happened for a few seconds . Then discovered that the rear jaw & half the body had sheared across both webs either side of the ram , it had ended up a foot or so away from what was remaining of the base.

On carefully looking at the break I found a dark telltale rust mark about 2/3 of and inch long on the rh web just below the rear jaw .

Never had a vice go like that on me before , I can only think that the 33 oC direct sun had heated up the closed tight vice the welded part adding more heat & pressure then due to expansions it cracked apart . I'm certainly not that strong to be able to wind a vice so tight with one gammy hand to break it.

 

[Dr.Al]

whats that for then?

Read all about it... https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/mini-moravian.142800/#post-2608221

 

[E T]

First use of the faceplate, the 6" 4 jaw was just a little bit to small.
Made a 40mm boring bar for the Southbend. The design for the tool holders I stole from Max Grant on Youtube.
I didn't take any pictures of the milling, but every time I'm pleasantly surprised I'm able to hit my dimensions on the small round column Rong-Fu clone. With small cuts mind. It doesn't like heavy cuts.
First testcut was promising. 140mm stickout, no chatter and a nice surface finish.

 

[Hood]

Just made up some m10 x 1.25 blanking plugs from 316 stainless, hope the rotary broach works when it arrives

 

[dieselsamurai]

Finally got a chance to set up the horizontal attachment for the Bridgeport and worked spot on , tested making some rebates in new soft jaws in made . Pain to set up though not something i would want to take on and off regularly.



Just set for squaring off some large V blocks i acquired recently , got the faces parallel but took a while to work out how I could set up to do both edges at the same time all the way round

 

[Tigman]

Stainless Steel spacer blocks for a customer