- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 2,485
A week or so ago, I cut off a chunk of old truck axle shaft and annealed it in the wood furnace
over night. In the morning it was relatively cool and I found I could abrade it with a file.
This morning I machined the end of the axle to 0.5 inch for about an inch and a half and also a 3/8
inch wide band of 1 inch diameter before cutting it off. It machined beautifully. Then it went
into the mill using a spin index and teeth were cut every 30 degrees giving 12 equally spaced teeth.
After that, the part was heated to a nice cherry red and waved in a tin can full of used
compressor oil. The file would not touch it now. A trial cut gave excellent results to I can
see that making more tooling will be in the offing. The photo shows the raw material, a test cut
and also the cutter itself. The machining process took less than an hour.
over night. In the morning it was relatively cool and I found I could abrade it with a file.
This morning I machined the end of the axle to 0.5 inch for about an inch and a half and also a 3/8
inch wide band of 1 inch diameter before cutting it off. It machined beautifully. Then it went
into the mill using a spin index and teeth were cut every 30 degrees giving 12 equally spaced teeth.
After that, the part was heated to a nice cherry red and waved in a tin can full of used
compressor oil. The file would not touch it now. A trial cut gave excellent results to I can
see that making more tooling will be in the offing. The photo shows the raw material, a test cut
and also the cutter itself. The machining process took less than an hour.