Quarantine Projects!

Weldo

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Hey guys, as you all are probably aware many people who work in "non essential" businesses are either urged or ordered to stay home for a while in an effort to curb the spreading of the COVID-19 illness.

I work in residential construction and as such I am one of those people. My company has stopped all field work on the order of the governor so I find myself with some free time. My hopes are to get some things done around the shop I've been neglecting for too long.

I figured starting a thread might be a fun way to document how we can use this time off! So if anyone is under quarantine, self or otherwise, post up some pics or descriptions of how you're using your time!
 
I'll start!

I finally got around to re-powering my belt sander. For years it's been running on a 3/4 HP spa pump motor, and while it did work it lacked power for heavy grinding. Also I was not able to achieve the pulley ratio I wanted because of lack of power.

A eventually found a better motor locally on craigslist but it's been languishing for a few years. The new motor is up to 2.3 HP!

The old spa pump motor is on the left.

EM520532.JPGEM520533.JPG

I'm hoping it'll allow me to change the pulley ratio to get some more SFM. I'm in the middle of this project right now!
 
I'm working on my mill DRO project.
Have the x and y axis done. Need to mount the display and put the table back on.
 
Right on! DRO is the ticket!

I keep thinking about trying to do DRO on my lathe, but I'm not sure it's worth it for me. If I had a mill I'd dive in for sure!

What kind of parts are you using?
 
Right on! DRO is the ticket!

I keep thinking about trying to do DRO on my lathe, but I'm not sure it's worth it for me. If I had a mill I'd dive in for sure!

What kind of parts are you using?
 
I keep thinking about trying to do DRO on my lathe

I did have problems intalling a DRO scale on my cross slide, but find that between the radius/diameter discrepancy, and the very slight lack of repeat, I don't use the DROs. I'm glad I didn't pay a lot for them or their installation, (Perhaps that would have made them more suitable), but don't be surprised if you don't use them.
 
That was my first quarantine project, to carefully examine the D80 DRO accuracy. I have the slim-line magnetic scales, that were nice to install but I have not been convinced about overall accuracy. To measure reliably to tenths over 5 or 6 inches turned out to be surprisingly difficult, with lots of unexpected error sources. Eventually I got a setup that was highly repeatable (seems like this would be easy, right?) but it took some time and trys. There was clearly an inaccuracy, and eventually it took about a 0.1% linear compensation to get it where it was as accurate as any way I had to check it.
The manual is just plain wrong and incomplete about the process, so that took awhile to figure out.

In the end, now the DRO is quite accurate. And I know how to do a linear compensation. :) The non-linear compensation process, if needed, looks like it's going to take more than a virus threat to get me to do it.
 
Not working sounds pretty good to me right now.
We always want something we can't have.
This too will pass, sooner than later I hope.
Stay well.
 
I built an adapter for my cheap tool and cutter grinder to grind square lathe tools. I don’t have a dovetail cutter so I used a 60* countersink and then got into the corners with an 1/8” end-mill. It works very well and by widening the slot and adding set screws I can grind any size I need. F10AA4EE-F8A2-4EA7-9613-51183EC005D5.jpeg8360E43F-3E51-40D3-A98F-E35BCB4235A1.jpeg
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