Hi All
I am not too active here but thought I might post my latest project. It is a rest for benchrest shooting. I am just venturing into the sport. I have seen some simple ones and some pretty elaborate ones. Hoping mine is somewhere in between when done.
The main body is aluminum that I cast last year. It is not great quality. I am new at that too. I was just reducing aluminum into soup cans but the products have been used in a project for someone else, wheels in a 2x72 belt sander and now this rest body. But the casting would be another thread. I just wanted to explain that what you are seeing did not start as a nice aluminum block. I did not take photos early on in the process so kind of jumping in here part way. The larger block is the main body. The sleeve is for a coarse adjustment of height (moves up and down and locked into place to move elevator and disc up and down) and so that the "elevator"? does not spin in the aluminum block. I have not tackled internal threads yet so welded a 3/4" coupling nut into a disc. Unfortunately, the disc had deeper rust on it than I thought so I have some to address. I did not want to mill the disc any thinner. It will be the means of adjusting the height. Some used rods instead of a disc. I thought a knurled edge would be nice. We will see.
My mill is a Sieg X3. I finally broke down and purchased a 4" rotary table for it. Never used one before. That was fun! To clamp the base down, I made a bushing to fit the hole at the bottom of the center of the rotary table and tapped it for 5/16 -18. I have not made any claps or t-nuts yet and it is too small for my regular clamps so I just clamped the rotary table down to my mill table. Not sure how it is usually done but this seems to have worked. I did not want the legs evenly spaced but rather kind of at 10, 2 and 6 o'clock.
I am not too active here but thought I might post my latest project. It is a rest for benchrest shooting. I am just venturing into the sport. I have seen some simple ones and some pretty elaborate ones. Hoping mine is somewhere in between when done.
The main body is aluminum that I cast last year. It is not great quality. I am new at that too. I was just reducing aluminum into soup cans but the products have been used in a project for someone else, wheels in a 2x72 belt sander and now this rest body. But the casting would be another thread. I just wanted to explain that what you are seeing did not start as a nice aluminum block. I did not take photos early on in the process so kind of jumping in here part way. The larger block is the main body. The sleeve is for a coarse adjustment of height (moves up and down and locked into place to move elevator and disc up and down) and so that the "elevator"? does not spin in the aluminum block. I have not tackled internal threads yet so welded a 3/4" coupling nut into a disc. Unfortunately, the disc had deeper rust on it than I thought so I have some to address. I did not want to mill the disc any thinner. It will be the means of adjusting the height. Some used rods instead of a disc. I thought a knurled edge would be nice. We will see.
My mill is a Sieg X3. I finally broke down and purchased a 4" rotary table for it. Never used one before. That was fun! To clamp the base down, I made a bushing to fit the hole at the bottom of the center of the rotary table and tapped it for 5/16 -18. I have not made any claps or t-nuts yet and it is too small for my regular clamps so I just clamped the rotary table down to my mill table. Not sure how it is usually done but this seems to have worked. I did not want the legs evenly spaced but rather kind of at 10, 2 and 6 o'clock.
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