A new kid, and a project....

Jake M

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Dec 28, 2021
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This is my first real post. Mostly just saying hello. I am building something, but this isn't really a project post, or a how to, mostly because I don't know what I'm doing. :) Just a beginner taking on a project. A project of limited use (although it will be useful), and not that difficult really. Kind of a jumping off point. I only wanted one thing, but the mole hill is turning into a mountain...

My metal shop consist mostly of a hammer, a cape chisel, and a South Bend 9 inch lathe. I'm really enjoying getting to know this little lathe. I've been quite happy with it. Even the rocker tool post, which seems to be a swear word in some circles. It's not hard to work with at all, but you do have to do it. I get it. But I'm OK with it. Except for one thing. The parting tool. Small ones I've ground, the standard parting blade holders, the "right handed" angled parting blade holder... Man, that last one's a treat. They all can be dialed in to work, but none can be angled against the chuck with any degree of usefulness, indicating them is an exercise in futility since they're relieved on the side, and not truly level when dialed in on center. You've kinda got to make a "practice parting cut" in a scrap to get it knocked into place just so. At which point, they all work as well as I'd expect that they should. So I'm gonna make a dedicated holder. I kinda had several ideas for a holding block directly on the cross slide, but no way to make them. So I turned to the internet. That search lead me to the Norman style tool post, and in turn to this site. That style tool post isn't really what I was picturing, although it kinda is, except in two pieces instead of just one. And easier to make with limited capacity and limited skills. And it might have other usefulness. So, step one is to over complicate things. I'm gonna make two tool posts. One to sit, as you'd expect, on top of the compound slide. And the other, with a round dovetail, to replace the compound slide, and sit directly on the cross slide. And, that "solid" tool post has room for a little more up and down travel, which might be handy for milling slots in just the right place... And if all goes to plan... (Yeah, that'll probably happen.), then I'm going to locate the height screw from the top of the post, and not the bottom. By doing so, I "should" be able to dial them in so that a tool holder would not need any adjustment to use it on either post. I have left a ledge to set the height from below, should this pipe dream not work out quite right. Or possibly add indexing, although I'm not really sure that feature would be terribly useful. Or at least not missed... Neither tool post really is indexed to a lathe axis to begin with.

Where to begin? Well, Start by rummaging through the metal collection. Kind of a rolling drawer under the lathe bench. And once again, as I open it, those freeking round bars that I insist on keeping for who knows why flipped up (again) and the thing won't roll out. After you look at the pictures, I'll let you guys figure out what why it takes me three weeks to get a four hour job done. And then, back to business. Replacing the compound slide with a solid tool holder should be more rigid, right? Yeah, on a small lathe like this, that gain is probably pretty hypothetical, but I'm going with it for now. And some extra travel room for later. I've got a small chunk of round, annealed 4140 that I have no way to heat treat. Expensive as can be, amazing stuff, but in a condition that makes it no better to me than any other random chunk of steel... It's a shame, but here goes. Took some doing to figure out how to get this stuff to cut well. Still can't break a chip to save my life. Beautiful finish though. I just turned it down until it "looked about right", which turned out to be one inch, two thirty something. Then I settled on nearest "even" increment, 1.200 inches. Mostly to protect my sanity, and keeping the math on even ten's when it comes later to working with the radius. Or it just helps my OCD to have an even number. Maybe both. But the post part came out to one inch 200 and a half. Five seconds of gray scotch brite, it's a mirror finish, and it's one inch two hundred point zero at room temperature. Man, I wish I could do that on demand.......

Uh oh.... Amateurs measuring in tenths.... You're right of course, but it's all I've got. Funny thing. I'm working in my basement, which is a unfinished walkout basement, in north central Vermont. It's one inch two hundred exactly when it's comfortable down there. Unless I start the wood stove, this time of year it's usually pretty steady about 40 degrees downstairs. At 60 to 75 ish degrees (held there for a while) I can measure tenths. When it's been cold, and I fire up the wood stove, see that giant "thermal mass" at the bottom of that tool post... As it warms (or cools) the narrow part "leads" the temperature change, I can measure the taper. It's not much, even on a tenths micrometer. It's not even tangible. It doesn't matter. It's repeatable. That does not play well with my brain.

Then I gotta make a tool holder. So, since I need (need..... want maybe.... :) ) a parting tool holder, I decided instead to make a holder for a quarter inch HSS tool. Maybe a little practice before I start the main piece. Maybe a little nervous about doing something of consequence when I'm not sure what I'm doing. Maybe the bar stock I had in the scrap metal pile wasn't nearly as thick as I remembered. Whatever the reason, general purpose cutting tool holder it is. So I marked out what I envisioned, and the scribed lines started overlapping each other... Did I mention I don't have a plan yet? Off to the internet to see if anybody's done anything like this before. So eventually Google found me a link to plans, in a post from this site. Kinda how I got here. Metric plans though. I really wanted to know how big to make stuff. :) So based on that, I've marked up the other side of the new tool holder. But now I'm stuck. You can't know everything ahead of time, and if you try to, you'll never get anywhere. I've made it from no lathe at all, to having a lathe and getting it to work for me freely working myself into a corner, and figuring out what to do from there, but now I'm stuck. I was setting up to make the main hole, since that's what I'm most likely to ruin. I certainly can find that punch mark. I can drill out that punch mark, and bore from there. But I don't know when to stop... I was banking on a brand new, shiny set of snap gauges, straight out of the Harbor Freight store. Something told me to investigate those before I went any further. Unefreakingbelievable. Not even reworkable. The "keyway slot" on the small end of the gauge I need is deeper at one end than the other. Like, a proud half a turn of the locking knob deeper. It just locks up. I could polish out crunchyness, but I don't think I can polish that out. So... eBay's going to send me a new (old) set of snap gauges, Yuasa brand. I was hoping for a cool old US brand (old enough to still be the US brand, not the offshore ghost of a brand), but Yuasa has been good to me with stuff at work so I'm sure these "were" decent. And these were cheap enough to gamble on, probably even if they're crap and worn out they'll be just as good at measuring bores as I am.....

Arright... While I wait, how about some drilling and threading. Here's where I screwed up. My plan (in my head) had me using number 8 screws to clamp the tool bit, and by eyeball (remember, I couldn't even be troubled to make a drawing here...), I seem to remember putting on my to do list, to look up some torque and force stuff for a number six screw to see if that was even plausible. But, my cap screw collection does not contain those. It does however have a good size selection of quarter twenty allen bolts and grub screws. And I've got a gun tap in that size, versus a hand tap. That'll hold 'em... Win-win, right? Seemed good until I remembered this was for a quarter inch tool bit. I'm either gonna have that tool bit clamped by it's inside corner, or the holder is going to be proud of the tool. Dang. That wasn't the brightest decision I made all day. But that's arrite. I might be able to change some dimensions and save it for a larger tool bit. Or it might be too thin of a piece for that. It might have been nice if I'd made a drawing..... Even some scratch pad notes... I might have to go back and look at it tomorrow.

This post is getting too long though, so when I get back to it, (could be days, could be weeks), I'll toss up some more pictures of how the holder(s) and the other tool post come out.
 

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Welcome
The knot tying training aid is interesting, how was that done?
 
Welcome
The knot tying training aid is interesting, how was that done?

All cold. A vice. A couple of bolts stuck up out of the vice. An eighteen inch piece of half inch pipe. An adjustable wrench with a perfectly sized bending hole in the handle. A big hammer. A knotted cup wheel on the angle grinder to remove the evidence from the hammer. And a whole lot of tying ropes into every knot I know, to find ones that I could break down or unfold into "doable" bends. Some inspiration from a video that Youtube recommended to me. He used heat though, I don't have that capability. He tied about the simplest knot of all, and I don't believe I could do that one. Oh- and something else that I intended to be doing. Nothing like that ever happens unless there's something else I intended to be doing.

 
Yay. My new used snap gauges came today. I prolly spend three and a half hours making this hole. I bored to a bunch of dimensions (every round thing I could find) to get a feel for the new gauges. Much better than the Harbor Freight ones. I'm not gonna pretend to be good at using them, but at least these are usable. I think even "good" I missed the final bore just a thousandth. Thankfully it was undersized. but the internet rescued me again with a verticle sheer tool. I wanted to try that for quite some time. Now I found a reason. Hard to believe that this even cut, let alone in this flip flop tool holder, and still did a good job of it.
 

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