2013 POTD Thread Archive

mine are the center two in the picture of four.
for thepast few days ive been making reproduction signal light brackets for older 750honda motorcycles. Left and right hadversions. My boy has three of them. The orig. ones are not available any longerand they are prone to snap off if the bike is dropped. . . “help dad !”
so I mentallydysected the orig ones he borrowed from a friend, got a few hunks of sheetmetal about 14ga thick, bent it into a channel shape about 1” x 1”x 1”, 6inches long, leaving a bunch of extra material on all sides for jig-ability, I locatedand drilled some 8 odd indexing holes with the mill and the dro;s (not a shamelessplug) for assisting in repeatability. Usingthe index holes I cut the pie shape wedge out for more bending with my cut offwheel in a die grinder. After the threebends were made, I welded up the holes and where the pie cuts were made.
Next was todrill one hole and end mill a slot then off to the vice again to do the edgecontours. Most of the contours weredone with a .032 cut off wheel on a air die grinder. (they have been one of my bestest tools in mycollection). Then some belt sanding andcleaning up with a scotch brite disc on a rol-loc pad and die grinderagain. Then to the scotch brite wheel onmy bench grinder,
Of coursethe peg or stem that the light fits onto is a metric size so the mill was againmy partner. Figure out the location angle with my angle cube, and heavy tac weld them on all 4 edges.
They willbe painted flat black and if the boy wants to fill the back side that’s notvisible, that’s up to him.
Anyway itwas a fun project and a test of my cardboard engineering again.
Now I need tomake documents and sketches so I can make more. . . .. . . oh boy, ebay here I come. . . . NOT !

Not sure if this goes here because it didn't all happen today, but some of it did.

I knew I'd need more light than the halogen lamp that came with the G4003G so I had my electrician pull in a switched 120V when he pulled the feed in for the lathe.

Finally got my light hung after I got my MIG to quit balling up my wire feed:



The wire feed for the halogen lamp kept getting in the way of clean up so I tidied that up a little:



Also didn't like to have to fidgit with a brush and a dustpan to get the swarf over the lip of the pan and my vacuum cleaner kept getting clogged up so I installed a scupper.

The fixin's:



Getting it installed:



And viola!:



My QCTP came clocked inconveniently from the factory. It made changing the toolholder a PIA so I moved the handle. Much more convenient now:



Finally got around to making this. Sure helps these tired ol' dawgs:



Mama just called and vittles are on, gotta run.

More to follow. Thanks for looking.

Dale

Uhg.!! The dis-assembly and cleaning process under way on the new to me surface grinder. For the most part just mindless scrubbing scraping spraying and wiping ****. I swear every time I go thru this it will be my last. Someone decided to grease the ways at some point so all the oil passages will need roto rooting.

drs23 said:

Not sure if this goes here because it didn't all happen today, but some of it did.

I knew I'd need more light than the halogen lamp that came with the G4003G so I had my electrician pull in a switched 120V when he pulled the feed in for the lathe.

Finally got my light hung after I got my MIG to quit balling up my wire feed:

And viola!:




More to follow. Thanks for looking.

Dale

Click to expand...

That is a great idea. Can you show how it opens?

Thanks for posting,
Jeff

Got some free time and decided to make some adjustable feet for my mill. After contemplating "purchased ones, decided to make my own. Dug up some 3/4" bolts and some 3/4" plate. After cutting my plate to 2.5" squares I decided to make the "feet part" round and chucked them all up in the lathe








Will drill holes in the other 4 plates and use the nuts to do the adjusting. Was contemplating a way to have the bolts "pivot" a bit in the feet part to compensate for uneven floor spots, but I think I can get away with just welding the bolts on, haven't decided yet.

OK, after going outside for 10 min I decided how to do it. Going to turn the bolt head round (which now gives a larger dia head than the shaft), curve the face and then put a plate behind the head to "lock" it to the foot, while still letting it pivot to the floor profile.



Only problem now is I have no way to turn an arc on the end of the bolt OR in the receiving hole in the foot ........ unless I make a ball cutter thing for my lathe LMAO Yea, another project. Time to search the forums here for a nice one to make.

The weather forecast promised some nice weather for most part of the weekend, so I decided to get the filing and sawing machine, that has been sitting in the garage for six weeks, into my shop in the basement.

The picture above shows it after lowering it down the ramp into the basement and just after moving it from the pallet onto castors. Just visible in front of the pallet are the thick walled tubes I jused to lower it down the ramp. One pipe up slope from the center of the pallet, so that the front of the pallet can act as a brake. The other pipe to pry it down. Just like the egyptians ... The machine had been bolted down to the pallet! Forgot to take any pictures of the process, unfortunately.
Here it is after moving into the shop and unwrapping:

The adjustable arms on the left and right are holddowns. The flexible tube on the left ist the air supply that blows the chips away from the cut. The tube on the right pointing somwhat aimless into the air used to hold a light and magnifier. But alas, a previous owner removed them.
The first test run (1/8" Aluminum, only took a few seconds):

The tooling that came with it

The stroke adjustment

The maker

The machine seems to be from the sixties and seems to be in good shape apart from some rust on the pullies and motorcover (inside the stand). I didn't really need it, but as I saw the offer, it was too good a deal to let pass. I really like the machinery from the fifties/sixties. Now, if I could just extend the shop a bit further into the basement .....

All I did in the shop today was clean my bike after returning from a four week work trip to Louisiana. I was down there welding in some SS hand rails. Now that I am back home I am looking forward to making some chips.

stern said:

Only problem now is I have no way to turn an arc on the end of the bolt OR in the receiving hole in the foot ........ unless I make a ball cutter thing for my lathe LMAO Yea, another project. Time to search the forums here for a nice one to make.

Click to expand...

If you loosen the compound angle adjustment a little bit, you can use the compound as a radius cutter. Make sure it is not too loose, or you will get wicked chatter and sloppy cuts, and feed the compound past the pivot point towards the center of the lathe, to make concave radii, and the opposite way for external radii. Obviously this method will only make as large of a radius as your compound has travel, but it is a neat trick none the less.

Something like this.


-Cody

DAMN!!! thanks for posting that. Im in the process of making adjustable feet for my mill and wanted to "ball out" the ends of the adjuster bolts so the feet could pivot a bit to compensate for an imperfect garage floor. Was going to start making a radius cutter this afternoon to do this, but this saves me the hastle of making one just for the feet project (also a pain to make one when the mill isnt fully operational). Since I only need 4 sets of rounder bolts and slight concave feet ends this seems the best way.

Codered741 said:

If you loosen the compound angle adjustment a little bit, you can use the compound as a radius cutter. Make sure it is not too loose, or you will get wicked chatter and sloppy cuts, and feed the compound past the pivot point towards the center of the lathe, to make concave radii, and the opposite way for external radii. Obviously this method will only make as large of a radius as your compound has travel, but it is a neat trick none the less.

Something like this.
View attachment 59184

-Cody

Click to expand...

Slick! Thanks for posting this Cody.