- Joined
- Mar 2, 2018
- Messages
- 232
Now that I have accepted that you don't make a 3.5" diameter gear by slicing off a hunk of exorbitantly expensive round bar, I am starting to accept that my future is going to involve cutting a lot of circles out of brass sheet. I'm not excited by the prospect of doing it the usual way, where you rough cut it with a saw.
I started wondering about the "fly cutter" I used to use on my drill press when I did woodwork. That would work on brass, wouldn't it? Hmmm.
Something like this:
That thing sure was some ragged piece of misery, but it worked. Seems like the exact same tool would probably work on brass, but I might like to try to make something fancier. The thought is only half formed, but it seems like if I planned it right, I could mount the cutty bit on a screw, and give the thing a nifty little dial that could make exact cuts with micrometer level precision. I wouldn't want a twist drill making a wreck of the center. How about a center point, and a feed mechanism for plunging the cutty bit. Run a few passes, stop the machine, feed, repeat. It would be even better if I could engineer some kind of inertial-mass powered whirly gig doodad to advance the feed screw automagically, but that is probably aiming too high. Another possibility is to just drill and ream the center, and use a bit of drill rod. It would work harden the center, but that might not be a bad thing.
I'm just kind of thinking out loud, and thought I'd see what you guys have to say. Does this seem like a ridiculous waste of perfectly good time, or a nifty outside the box approach to a tedious problem?
I started wondering about the "fly cutter" I used to use on my drill press when I did woodwork. That would work on brass, wouldn't it? Hmmm.
Something like this:
That thing sure was some ragged piece of misery, but it worked. Seems like the exact same tool would probably work on brass, but I might like to try to make something fancier. The thought is only half formed, but it seems like if I planned it right, I could mount the cutty bit on a screw, and give the thing a nifty little dial that could make exact cuts with micrometer level precision. I wouldn't want a twist drill making a wreck of the center. How about a center point, and a feed mechanism for plunging the cutty bit. Run a few passes, stop the machine, feed, repeat. It would be even better if I could engineer some kind of inertial-mass powered whirly gig doodad to advance the feed screw automagically, but that is probably aiming too high. Another possibility is to just drill and ream the center, and use a bit of drill rod. It would work harden the center, but that might not be a bad thing.
I'm just kind of thinking out loud, and thought I'd see what you guys have to say. Does this seem like a ridiculous waste of perfectly good time, or a nifty outside the box approach to a tedious problem?