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

[IHinIN]

Started making an indicator stand. It’s 10” tall and so far it’s all made of 4140PHT. The fine adjust will be on the base. The only piece I didn’t make is the thumbscrew with the off center slot.

 

[woodchucker]

@rabler if you want to paint the threading plate, it's easy if you build a flat tipped blotter, just dip it in paint and blot it on the raised numbers. I found it online, and it worked well. Even a small square stick with a flat end, attach some felt over the tip, wrap it with some string and you have a hard blotter.

 

[rabler]

@rabler if you want to paint the threading plate, it's easy if you build a flat tipped blotter, just dip it in paint and blot it on the raised numbers. I found it online, and it worked well. Even a small square stick with a flat end, attach some felt over the tip, wrap it with some string and you have a hard blotter.

That might work, I've thought of a using the brayer type hard roller that I use for the surface plate ink. Another thing for the one-of-these days list

 

[extropic]

That might work, I've thought of a using the brayer type hard roller that I use for the surface plate ink. Another thing for the one-of-these days list

My first thought was to transcribe the data into Excel. Size the print area to fit 8.5 x 11. Print it, laminate and keep in a convenient location. YMMV

 

[dkemppai]

Replace the top links with turnbuckles like what is used on the top link in a rear mount 3pt hitch.

Might be able to do something, but that top link isn't just a simple member. It's also structural to the hitch.

If the top link wasn't ridged you would loose down pressure. That is REALLY nice. You can lift the front tires of the tractor off the ground about 8". The tractor gets supported from the cutting edge of the blower and back tires. Handy for putting the front chains on, and for carving up mat when it's too thick.

I think part of the reason for the 4 link design is it keeps the U joint angles equal. Even the spline on the shaft is keyed to clock the U joints to each other. This is a 2K RPM PTO, so maybe they do it for joint life??? The blower can be raised 3 feet and carve into a bank. For those occasional storms where the whole driveway fills with 4-5 feet, it's worth every penny.

Other than this somewhat minor grumble, it's worked flawlessly for over a decade. Have moved snow with a plow truck, and with the bucket on a bigger tractor. This is faster by a wide margin. (Most winters it gets used 3-4 times a week from Dec-April).

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Cleaned up a bunch of metric balance indicators

 

[Shiseiji]

Here or the Logan forum ??? Anyway. While investigating collet run-out on my Logan 820 10" lathe, I found "ratcheting" in the headstock bearings. I had heard of dried out grease causing this though I suspected "indexing" of bearings dropping into pits. Fortunately the OEM chuck side of the spindle bearings are shielded, not sealed, on the outboard side. I decided I probably couldn't make things worse by investigating.
1. What I found.
2. Mind's eye picture of the cleaned out visible bearing Some have reported being unable to remove "soap" additives that have separated from the grease. Kerosene and bicycle mechanic "Clean Streek" worked fine for me. I say "visible" because the bearings are double row and to be sure I need to pull the spindle and remove the bearing.
3. Bearing repacked with Chevron Black Perl SRI2 high temperature ball and roller bearing grease (why black when the container states the color is green? Marketing . . . ). Did my best to pack it in, I applied more after the picture and pressed in what I could with the shield. Nice thing about the shield is any excess will simply leak out.







And no more ratcheting Hopefully I've successfully delayed the replacement of the not inexpensive "tight clearance" bearing (not "pre-loaded" despite what the catalog says, but they do eliminate the need to pre-load the bearings).
Now if I could just undo my overfill of the spindle pulley

 

[Provincial]

@dkemppai, almost better off with the loader bucket, where you can set the angle of the bucket and float the arms. That's how I've done it here the few times we've had enough snow to worry about. Definitely slower having to pile it though. And yes, I'm guilty of mowing my lawn yesterday.

Got the cross DRO scale in place. Have secured the wire harness even though this picture was before that. Decided to wait on painting the mounting pieces until I've had some time to run/test it in use.
View attachment 484681

Old lathes tend to be a little messy but this one was out of control at the change gear end. You can see the cat litter on the floor trying to stay ahead of it. Originally thought one of the headstock shaft seals was leaking, but after a lot of messing around, it looks like the oil was coming from the QCGB, which is an open bottom total loss design. Oil that drips straight down ends up in the tray underneath, but some was getting caught up in the change gear train and splashing up on the belt guard on the left in this picture, then running down that guard to the floor. I'm attempting to caulk a piece of rubberized fiberglass matt, that I originally bought as way cover, to that belt guard so that the oil running down gets redirected into the tray. Maybe I need to be a little more stingy with the oil in the cup for the QCGB too, although that seems potentially troublesome.
View attachment 484682

Also, while digging through the box with the cross slide scale, I found this long missing "E D C" label for the QCGB. Presumably a victim of the move to the new shop, as the scale was still in the other building. A little spray paint and a few drive screws and it is once again clear which order things go in for the gears. My intiution was always that it should be in reverse order "C D E".
View attachment 484683

This plate is old and not the easiest to read since it sits below belt height, but this thing does have a nice selection of threads/feeds:
View attachment 484690
Somehow though I doubt I'll ever use 92 TPI threading.

But it makes a nice .011 feed.

 

[rabler]

Cleaning up a couple of D1-6 chucks for the 612 lathe.
The left is an 18" 4 jaw Cushman I bought some time ago from Lost Creek machinery. Haven't cracked it open yet. On the right, came with the lathe, is a 12" 3 jaw Italian MPT that was very stiff but appears to be in good condition. Completely disassembled, cleaned, Evapo-rust, and light grease, still stiff when assembled. Appears the back of the chuck is pressing on the worm gear and needs to be shimmed out about .004 so I'm waiting on some shim washers from McMaster. Guess I'll start on the 4-jaw while waiting. I also have a small 6 jaw for that lathe, neither of these pictured chucks has a RPM limit visible on them but spinning either one up to 1500 (top spindle speed for that lathe) is beyond my comfort level.

 

[rabler]

But it makes a nice .011 feed.

I try to leave the tumbler in the leftmost position by default since that is the only place it picks up oil. As a result, most of the time I'm using one of the 0.0174, 0.0087, or 0.0044 feeds. Not that often that I care about tenths on the feed rate.