POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

Think of designing and building a prototype of that machine, with the technology available at the time! No computers, no CNC machining, limited availability of carbide tooling.

No wonder machine tools were relatively more expensive back in the day.
 
POTD was making a knob for accessing the battery of our Case 580 backhoe. The battery mounts in a swing-open compartment which is secured with a 3/8" bolt. I've left a 9/16" wrench in the Case to get to the battery, but it'd be nice to access it without needing a tool.

Chucked up some 1" 303 stainless and turned a shoulder. Cut a relief at the bottom of the thread and a relief for the end of the knob's knurling. Single point threaded, cleaned up the thread with a flat file and checked the pitch diameter with screw pitch mics.


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I cut off the knob with a bandsaw and mounted it back on the lathe to clean up the parted surface. Broke out my bag of arbor nuts for that job. Nothing earth-shattering, but I've found it handy to have elongated nuts (like all-thread couplers) for mounting threaded fasteners in the lathe.


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Much more convenient to get to the battery with a knob instead of a bolt.
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Thanks for looking, Bruce
 
Today I finished up a cheap but surprisingly time consuming adjusting wheel for my DeWallet. I named them DeWallet because if you want to own some of the yellow and black you'll need to "get off DeWallet".

I find that I struggle if I am trying to hit a specific thickness with the planer. I can do it, but it requires several passes to creep up on the dimension or I get ahead of myself and take too big a pass and overshoot. I purchased the DRO for it which was a big help. Its resolution is .005 which I believe is good enough for wood but my OCD wouldn't allow me to leave it alone.

According to DeWallet, a single rotation of the 7" hand wheel equals 1/16" (.0625) of an inch. Shop dog and I do not deal in angle minutes and seconds on the weekend so 360 /60 it is. With that in mind I milled 60 divisions around a piece of 7" billet using a rotary table. This allowed shop dog and I to talk more and think less. He really thinks the neighbors are odd. Each division is close to .001 per. To help my tired eyes, I filled the milling lines and letters in with an instant anodizer (sharpie marker).

When you look at the pics, there are a couple pictures with the reference pointer up top installed with double stick tape. Ultimately, I press fit a .140 piece of drill rod into the bracket for the DRO. This way it is mostly protected from my normal abuse.
The wheel can't be zeroed out like the hand wheels on a lathe or mill. The stamped numbers just allow me to identify where the wheel is at during a pass and allow me to keep track of adjustments.

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Seems to work as hoped. I ran a couple of test pieces today, first one with .485 on the DRO and #40 on the wheel. The board measured at .485" after the pass. I moved the cutter up a couple inches, then returned back to .485 on the DRO and and #40 on the wheel. Planed the second board and it also measured .485". Now my OCD is appeased. Shop dog has temporarily stopped playing Mrs. Cravits and is enjoying some well deserved pancakes.
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