2013 POTD Thread Archive

Got a good bit of shop time this weekend. Started on Saturday with an extension for the quill hand wheel on my mill. When I got it the hand wheel was missing. I ordered a new one and realized why the other guy probably never used it - the quill encoder for the ProtoTRAK interferes with it! I rummaged around my scrap bin but didn't have any rounds in 1 1/4" diameter. I finally found an unknown steel scrap that was close. It was a complete pain to machine. Super hard, flaky chips, not like cast but almost like a magnet. Weird stuff. Anyway, my mini lathe wouldn't touch it and my Clausing lathe isn't running, so I milled the diameter and punched some holes in it. Not pretty, but it works.













Finished Saturday by picking up our new FJ cruiser and erecting a Harbor Freight garage for it!





Today I whipped up some table covers for the mill using some MDF I had lying around.





Finally, I moved in my new to me surface plate I got at an auction a couple of weeks ago. It's been sitting in the garage since then, and it was time to get it moved. It's a 18" x 24" x 4" Starrett crystal pink. Heavy beast! That's a 6" dial caliper for reference.









Sorry for the long post - had a bunch of pics and thought I'd share.

woodtickgreg said:

I spent some quality time with the south bend today!

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Looking good Greg! Is that a halogen work light attached to the red tripod? Does it throw out a lot of heat?

chip_slinger said:

Looking good Greg! Is that a halogen work light attached to the red tripod? Does it throw out a lot of heat?

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No, LOL, it's just the stand for a halogen, I use a clip on with a 100 watt fluorescent in it.
You had a great day too! Nice fj.

woodtickgreg said:

I spent some quality time with the south bend today! First real long session with her, she ran for about 5 hours and the bearing caps never even got warm. This was the first time I really used the south bend since I restored it, all I got to say is it is a real joy to use. It just flat out works. I have said all along that I intend to use it as she was designed to be, it's not art or a museum piece, but as close to a brand new 1949 south bend heavy 10 as I can get I think. So I oiled her up and got to turning, todays project was to make a bunch of blanks for wood turning chisels that I make. I started with 3/8" square cold rolled steel. I turn 3" of the shank round, that way all a wood turner has to do when making a handle for them is drill a 3/8" hole in the handle and epoxy them in. So here's a few pics of the lathe running and making cuts and getting covered with chips and oil. I have re purposed the cart that I used when restoring the lathe to a tool cart for the mill and lathe, I can just pull it out when I need it and stash it between the mill and lathe when I'm done. Was a fun day. Here's some pics........

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Nice looking SB! I'm so used to seeing mine with a 6" chuck on it that yours looks like a SB13 with that large chuck on it! Looks good!

woodtickgreg said:

No, LOL, it's just the stand for a halogen, I use a clip on with a 100 watt fluorescent in it.
You had a great day too! Nice fj.

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Ah, that makes more sense! Thanks, I'm liking the FJ quite a bit already.

brasssmanget said:

Nice looking SB! I'm so used to seeing mine with a 6" chuck on it that yours looks like a SB13 with that large chuck on it! Looks good!

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It's a brand new 8" 4 jaw independent, got it cheap and it works great.

Another really productive day, and is was barely in the shop!

Got much more cleaning and organizing done.

While working on a project for my cousin, I have been taking the opportunity to continue super-fine tuning the SB.

I was inspired to properly repair the previous bad repair of the crosslide dial lock. Even when locked, it would jiggle about 3 thousandths. Found out there is a pin (not even tapered!) that locks a sleeve the dial rotates on. This sleeve is pinned to the crosslide screw. The holes the pin went through were worn out, allowing the dial to jiggle just that little bit.

I took out the pin, hammered it a little to make it a light press fit, and tapped it in. Better than new!

Then, upon reassembly, I found that the crosslide screw oil hole was blocked. No wonder it wasn't taking oil properly!

I discovered the whole bearing housing (screwed into the saddle) needed to be shim'd out to allow the oil holes to align, then allowing oil into the crosslide screw. After testing a number of thicknesses, it ended up needing 7 thousandths between the crosslide screw housing and the saddle. I used a scissor and cut a whacky-looking "O" shape out of the brass shim stock.

By shimming it out, it would not overturn, and the oil holes would line up. It feels. Fantastic!


And lastly, I quickly fabricated a mount for a 2-inch dial-indicator to be used as a carriage feed readout.
I will get to use it tomorrow! Pics to come

Bernie

itsme_Bernie said:

Another really productive day, and is was barely in the shop!

Got much more cleaning and organizing done.

While working on a project for my cousin, I have been taking the opportunity to continue super-fine tuning the SB.

I was inspired to properly repair the previous bad repair of the crosslide dial lock. Even when locked, it would jiggle about 3 thousandths. Found out there is a pin (not even tapered!) that locks a sleeve the dial rotates on. This sleeve is pinned to the crosslide screw. The holes the pin went through were worn out, allowing the dial to jiggle just that little bit.

I took out the pin, hammered it a little to make it a light press fit, and tapped it in. Better than new!

Then, upon reassembly, I found that the crosslide screw oil hole was blocked. No wonder it wasn't taking oil properly!

I discovered the whole bearing housing (screwed into the saddle) needed to be shim'd out to allow the oil holes to align, then allowing oil into the crosslide screw. After testing a number of thicknesses, it ended up needing 7 thousandths between the crosslide screw housing and the saddle.

By shimming it out, it would not overturn, and the oil holes would line up. It feels. Fantastic!


And lastly, I quickly fabricated a mount for a 2-inch dial-indicator to be used as a carriage feed readout.
I will get to use it tomorrow! Pics to come

Bernie

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Congrats, Bernie... sounds like a really productive day!

clevinski said:

Congrats, Bernie... sounds like a really productive day!

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Thanks Charlie! I have had a few of those recently! You won't believe that I have more "stuff" AND more room here when you visit next! ha hah

Bernie

Today I milled a notch in a Kennedy toolbox lock so it would fit in my restored Waterloo box (is that sacrilege? but my wife said I can keep the toolbox in the living room of our cabin since it cleaned up so nice and there's limited storage there for my "cabin" tools), but more interesting is my new drill/tap/endmill storage at home. I was given one of those drawer units, you know, the ones that come filled with parts, hardware, fittings, whatever, dunno what this one was from, with hinged lid metal divider boxes that set in the drawer trays... only the boxes were missing. I made drawers of 1/4" plywood, with mountain laurel handles like I have all over my cabin (might as well be quirky in my shop too, no?).


From bottom to top it's taps and dies, drills, endmills and reamers etc., and chucks/parallels/vblocks etc. (new to this craziness, not that much tooling... yet).