An Hour In The Shop On A Cold Morning...

cathead

CATWERKS LTD
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IMG_0743.JPG I'm usually up early to put some wood in the boiler and today was no exception. The
thermometer read minus 20F this morning, not as cold as the day before. It's a good
time to spend an hour in the shop and have a cup of coffee and do a little machine work.
Today I made a cylindrical square for on the drill press, a simple thing to do to face off
both end surfaces in the lathe. It's handy to have several of these made in different
lengths. It saves moving the drill press table up and down for every operation.

The other project was to add a swivel to the top of the machinist jack I made a while back.
It's not a big thing but will make a difference when I want to use it.

Both of these items were in a pile of metals slated for the recycler so was
able to utilize it for something. I wonder what other treasures might be lurking in that box.
I will have to go over it before it goes off to the junk.

Here's a photo of the two projects:
 
I feel for you at 20 degrees here in So. Calif. I complain at 40 degrees. would like to know more on the cylindrical square. and how accurate are they.
 
they both look nice, how tall is the jack. I cannot tell from the picture.
 
That looks like a productive morning. Got down to a bone chilling 74F here this morning.:big grin: Mike
 
To answer the questions, the machinist jack is about 3 inches tall, the cylinder about 6 inches.

The cylinder is as accurate as the cylinder is true. Using the Y axis on the lathe makes a very accurate cut unless the
lathe us out of whack(square).
 
You said in the OP its "handy" to have cylindrical squares. I picked one up in a box at a garage sale this summer. what are they commonly used for?
 
I use it to check tram against the mill spindle. It's good for any round-to-round registration.

I bought mine from Shars.
 
You could use a cylindrical square to check your drill press table against a drill bit to make sure the table is perpendicular to the drill bit (spindle).

Those both look great.
 
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