2017 POTD Thread Archive

[woodtickgreg]

No video link. But a very cool project!
Awesome.

 

[eugene13]

I guess this should have been on the previous page, but I wanted to show off my billet aluminum soap dish sized to fit a bar of Lava. I also like Boraxo, and have fond memories of Ronald Regan as the Old Ranger on Death Valley Days.

 

[Surprman]

I formed a tool using my new (to me) ACME thread gage and cut my first ACME thread. It is just a test piece in aluminum but it came out pretty nice. They take a long time because you can't take too big of a bite on each pass. I imagine my next one in steel will take even longer.

Rick

 

[brino]

It is just a test piece in aluminum

That is one successful test! Well done.
-brino

 

[FanMan]

I needed to make a new boom microphone for my new plane because its radio has different requirements than my old one. I'm not using a standard aircraft headset because they don't work well with my leather helmet (this is an open cockpit biplane, after all). Anyway, I purchased a replacement microphone from an aircraft supplier. Another flier using this mike had used pieces of 12GA solid wire to go into the mike's female connections and that's what I originally planned with hot melt glue to snot it all together, but the wire wasn't a great fit and it just seemed hokey anyway. Some research revealed that the mike is supposed to mate with a standard connector which is readily available, but naturally I didn't have one and didn't want to wait, so I decided to make my own. A little more research found the specification drawing for the connector, with all the dimensions.

Instead of the copper wire, I turned the pins out of 1/8" brass rod. I don't have a lathe, so I did it in the mill, with a tool bit clamped in the mill vise. I also turned the groove with the same cutter, but I finished the ball ends by hand with a file and a stone, then used Craytex to smooth everything out. This is the first real project I've done since putting the variable speed drive (treadmill motor conversion) on my mill; it sure was nice to be able to crank the speed up for the small diameter brass with the turn of a knob instead of messing with moving belts around!



Next, I needed a housing. I originally planned to solder wires to the pins, plug the pins into the mike, wrap it with tape and then pot everything immobile with epoxy, but I found a piece of .300 thick plastic (UHMW, I think, but I'm not sure) in my scrap box so I decided to do it right. I didn't take any pictures of the process as it's run of the mill (pun intended) milling. After sizing the workpiece, I drilled 1/8" holes for the pins which closed up enough in the plastic to be a light press fit, then I milled a pocket on the back side. Slip the wires through, and solder them to the pins:



Finally, press the pins into the shell, pack the excess wire into the backside cavity, and fill it with epoxy to lock everything together (that's the microphone next to it):



Now I'm just waiting for warm enough weather to go up to the airport and try it out, but right now there's a blizzard coming...

 

[ddickey]

I made an improved fish tail. Got the idea from Stefan G.

 

[tweinke]

FanMan, that's using the ol knoggen! Really nice job. I guess where there's a mill there's a way..........................

 

[rdean]

Took me a couple of days to complete this height gauge and storage box.
Made from a HF digital caliper.
Box is poplar.







Thanks for looking

Ray

 

[Charles Spencer]

Took me a couple of days to complete this height gauge and storage box.
Made from a HF digital caliper.

Ingenious.

 

[woodtickgreg]

That's very cool, I never even thought about making my own height gage. Brilliant!