2019 POTD Thread Archive

I've had that problem before, on many of my cars, but the quality of the zip ties i'm using now are extremely good, also the CV joints have a deep groove the boot to go in to. I'm not concerned that the boot will let go at speed because the Little Niva had a top speed of 85 mph when new some 40 years ago.
 
I repurposed some Delrin into some round stock. I have collected a lot of this material, some is still in the old fixtures that I picked up for super low cost. I had a section left from a previous project so I cut into 1” square sections and turned them into round stock. The stock ended up around
.900 so it’s perfect for some projects. Here is the video.


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I had to replace the brake pads on my truck yesterday and needed to turn the rotors. My lathe only has a 12" capacity and the rotors were just over 13". I didn't want to drive 30 miles to town to get them turned so I thought this would be a good time to try out my rotory table on the mill.
I had an old bearing hub off it with the lug pattern so I stuck it in the 4 jaw then bolted the rotor to it.
Stuck in a fly cutter with a HSS bit and adjusted the distance and started cutting.
Worked like a charm. Just wish I had a powered rotary table, would have saved on all the cranking.
Took 2 passes on each side and they were good.
2 rotors, both sides= a lot of turns on the handle. But it did the job.
I forgot to take some pics of the setup but it was pretty basic.
 
On my heavy 10 project, I bought a tailstock off eBay that had a drill chuck and a tailstock screw stuck in it.

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I think the seller didn't realize it was a left-hand screw, but it was jammed in there so well, I had to use vice grips to get the screw out. The screw had been chopped off (it wasn't the original length any more). I bought some left-handed 1/2" ACME threaded rod, turned it down till the threads were gone, and then Loc-tite'd the features on (later pinned once the Loc-tite dried). I used the original screw to get dimensions.

Just a note, I'd advice you to Loc-tite and pin the piece for the features BEFORE you turn those features down - so that you can be concentric. Still, I was lucky enough to go oversize, so I could get it all centered up. I ended up with a fully functional tailstock, with a Jacobs drill chuck on an arbor.

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Kindly ignore my high-tech drawing. I took those numbers from the shorter screw, and tried to measure the length of screw I needed (I actually needed a little more).
 
POTD was repairing my 10” Craftsman table saw blade tilt function. I toasted the original motor around 30 yrs. ago and replaced it with a HF 2 HP motor. I made a stand for my 6” joiner and table saw out of angle iron and plywood, used the joiner to straighten an edge before sawing. Also made rips ~1/32” oversized, then joined the edge to clean off the saw marks. Made sense to tie the two tools together on one stand.

The replacement motor lasted a few years, then cooked that one too. I’d replaced it with a Baldour 1 ½ HP industrial commercial motor which has served me well for the last 25 years. Down side was the motor is longer than the HF motor, so didn’t quite fit the stand. I knew that if I tilted the blade on the table saw, I had to manual lift the motor to keep it from catching on the angle iron. I knew it so no big deal.

Well, fast forward a few years and my better half was using the saw. I told her about the crank on the side to change the blade angle, but neglected to tell her that there’s a clamp bolt on the front of the saw above the height crank that locks the arbor. Didn’t tell her about the motor interference either. The woman has some arm strength and bent the heck out of the table base side plate.

The arbor tilts by a shaft that screws into the saw arbor housing/casting. The opposite end where it passes out the saw cabinet has a ball pinned to the shaft. One half of the socket is a stamping that screws to the cabinet which has the other half of the socket. She managed to put some pretty good bends in the side of the cabinet and trash the stamped inside ball socket. Time for a proper repair.


Top side of the 10" table saw
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Tilt crank under the RH side
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Hard to see in the photo, but the side of the cabinet was bent from cranking the tilt hand wheel with the arbor assembly locked in place.
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Inside the saw, you can see the bent sheet metal here. The inside ball socket bracket is on the LH side of the photo.
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Used a piece of ¼” thick mystery CRS for the new inside ball socket plate. Spot drilled and drilled ¼” mounting holes which matched the spacing of the existing cabinet holes. Drilled out the center hole with a ½” drill.

Spot drill the inside half ball socket bracket
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Drilled 1/4" clearance holes
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1/2" center hole in prep for cutting the ball socket
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My Bridgeport has a circa 1983 Anilam Crusader 2-axis CNC set up. One of the G-codes is G76, circular hole milling. This is a REALLY handy routine: Set the cutter on the circle center, plug in the hole diameter, cutter diameter and issue G76. The path moves on a 45 deg. angle (1:30) and stops just short of the circle edge. Then does a path change to come onto the tangent point of the circle at 12 o’clock and continues to make a circle going CCW (climb cutting). Finishes the circle at 12 o’clock, pulls off the perimeter to 10:30, then returns to center. I used the G76 routine with a 3/8” end mill to hog out a ¾” hole for the start of the ball socket.


Used a 3/8" end mill and a CNC routine to open the 1/2" hole to a 3/4" clearance hole
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Then changed to a ¾” ball end mill to cut the socket. The ball on the table saw tilt shaft mic’d at 0.985”, so I plugged in a 0.99” circle diameter and a ¾” end mill. Ran the G76 routine again to make the half-socket. Advanced the tool a bit for each pass until the hole measured 0.99”.


3/4" ball end mill running a CNC routine to cut a 0.990" diameter hole
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Kept stepping the cut down until the original 3/4" hole was opened to 0.990"
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The ball on the tilt shaft is pinned, depth in the socket on the original stamped bracket was to the middle of the spring pin. So made passes with the ¾” ball end mill until dry-fitting the tilt shaft was midway on the spring pin.


Original stamped bracket on the tilt shaft ball; looked to be half-way deep on the spring pin
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Checked for depth on the new ball socket bracket with the tilt shaft ball
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I reinforce the outside of the saw cabinet with a piece of ¼” aluminum bar stock. Held the aluminum on the outside of the cabinet and traced the hole with a paint marker. Set the bar stock on the mill and used a laser center finder to find X (though nothing critical). Our son was home from college so it was a good time to show him the technique. I didn’t hold the aluminum at the center in Y when tracing the hole, so found center of the tracing with the laser, zero’d X, then moved Y to the middle of the aluminum and zero’d.


Roughly found the center of a paint marked hole from the saw cabinet. Plan was to position for X with the laser, then move Y to the center of the aluminum plate
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Drilled ¼” holes for tying the reinforcing plate to the cabinet, mounting holes for the ball socket bracket and a center hole.


1/4" mounting holes and center clearance hole
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Plan was to hog out a clearance hole in the center to clear the stamped cabinet side of the ball socket. Diameter was 1.125”, so used G76 again with a 1.125” diameter hole and a 1/2” end mill.

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Set the aluminum reinforcing plate in place and positioned it with a couple of ¼” bolts. Transfer punched the position of the mounting bolts. Drilled the clearance holes and bolted the inside ball socket plate and outer reinforcing plate in place.


Transfer punching the upper/lower mounting holes for the reinforcing plate
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Outside plate bolted in place
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Inside view of the new half-ball socket bracket
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Outside of the reinforcement and cleared out hand room for the hand wheel
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Works wonderfully! I took advantage of the saw being unbolted to the clear away some of the wooden frame for the side extension table, kept rubbing my hand on the edge. Also repositioned the saw on the stand so I no longer have to fiddle with holding the motor “just so” to tilt the saw blade.


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Thanks for looking.

Bruce
 
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Nice repair on the Craftsman saw Bruce. :encourage:

So many people are so busy lately. Too many projects to comment on.

I'm working on trying to put a new clutch in my old Ford pick-up. I'm just getting started and removing the driveshaft has become a major event. The bolts for the center bearing are going to need to be cut off. Too close to the gas tank to be using a cutting torch. Gonna try to grind them off being careful where I shoot the grinding sparks. Its pouring rain outside now, that's where I'm working on it. So maybe tomorrow I'll get the drive shaft off.

I take it one step at a time around here.
 
Finished this tonight. Took a couple of evenings, my soldering is a little rusty but the 1500 watt Weller soldering gun pulled through.
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Hoping spring is someday going to come prompted me to build a filter for the garden water. I water out of a small pond, but debris plays havoc with sprinklers. Milled slots in the center 1 1/2 ABS pipe then soldered a super fine brass screen around it. The water will enter through the T go out through the screen and exit from the end pipe.

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Greg
 
Finished this tonight. Took a couple of evenings, my soldering is a little rusty but the 1500 watt Weller soldering gun pulled through.
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Greg

Hey Greg, I'm in love with your Steampunkish Nixie Tube thingy.

I've always wanted to build something with Nixie Tubes. Your project just reminded me that I have some old Nixie tubes I bought when I was quite young. By golly I still have them. I have 14 of them in this drawer: :grin:

Nixie (1).JPG

And lo and behold the tech sheet and schematic is in there too.

I didn't catch the top of the document in the photo, but it's from Radio Shack >>>--Archer--> brand. It's Nixie Numerical Indicator.

It calls out all the pinouts and specs.

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On the back side is a full schematic for hooking up a single tube with a 7490 counter so the tube will count up from 0 to 9 repeatedly.

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Of course, that's just to show how it works. Then you can hook it up to display whatever numerical values you want.

I have 14 of these. I really should do something with them. I've had these laying around for at least 5 or 6 decades. I wonder if they'll still work? Do they have a shelf life? Or are they virtually eternal if never used?
 
I needed some thin brass shims.
Drilled a 6mm dole in some mild steel, turned a 6mm spigot to fit, inserted the spigot in the drill, set it in the hole, clamped the die to the drill table.
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Punched a bunch of holes, I was amazed at how easy this was.
Cut the holes from the sheet and tightened then between 2 washers
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and turned them round.
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