2014 POTD Thread Archive

I spent the day moving machines to a friends place for sale, making room for the Sheldon Shaper I was SUPPOSED TO pick up today. I do believe there is some reason I am not meant to pick it up today, after a treacherous day trying to get the place ready.

But I had to accept some kind of fate, when after the crazy day, and still successful rearranging of the evening to pick up the shaper AGAIN,
Bernie

So Bern ya finnally got a shaper good for you son. No worry bout the tire you dont own it just slide the shaper a little to the good side
tires lol sam
 
Well, not exactly "of the day", but I had to deal with other things, like the broken spring of my drill press.
I made a split nut for an M6 threaded bar, using a scrap of aluminum: nothing special, but it works smoothly:

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The wing nut is on a piece of M4 threaded bar loctited to the aluminum, and the pin, here still to be cut, came from a wire coat hanger.
Inside there are two springs, helping to open the nut:

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The small spring comes from an empty Bic lighter, the bigger one is a piece of the spring of those "one size fits all" skirt hangers, good both for wifey (waistline size "drill press column") and for mom-in-law (waistline size "Bridgeport column"), so I still have a lot of that spring to use.

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finally got my cam lock tailstock finished. got a few minor tweaks to make, but its working. i cant beleive how long it takes me to get anything done, maybe its part of the learning curve. woulda been so much easier to spend $30 for the kit, but i had to prove i could do it. i made a bigger bottom plate also. actually, the whole thing is new, i didnt reuse any of the factory parts, and now i dont have to wrestle a wrench in there to move the tailstock. a minor achievment,but my biggest project so far.
 
Excellent day in the shop yesterday. I finally finished mounting a Hardinge 5C speed chuck to my lathe. I started this some weeks ago and after very carefully machining a D1-5 back plate so the collet chuck registered perfectly I was unhappy to find it .003 out of round. I suspect at some point in it's history it suffered some trauma but it's happy now. I used a 1" dia piece of O1 drill rod in the 4 jaw and then tightened the Hardinge up on the shafting and trued the rear face square and touched the ID of the bore until it cleaned up. I knew it would be a little overrsized on my back plate but I figured I'd nudge it into position and crank down the mounting bolts. Seems to have worked well. I can remove and reinstall and the TIR is .0003, very happy with the results.

I then used it to make a tool height setting gauge, inspired by some earlier posts in this thread, so nice to use the collets for holding the brass. Not that setting tool height is hard but this makes it a little quicker and easily repeatable.

Finally I had some 3/4 shank brazed carbide RH turning tools. My BXA sized QCTP needs 5/8, so popped those in the mill and took .125 off the bottom. Nothing special there but I picked those up as part of batch and they were brand new from 1957, so I'm happy they will now see some use.

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First project on my new to me Sheldon lathe... It came with a 3 jaw chuck, but no key. I did a no-no- milled the flats on my drill press. I don't have a mill.

Cannonball Run: Well we're Southbound and down, loaded up and truckin', we're gonna do what they say can't be done...!:phew:
 
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