Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs
Building a New Lathe
vtsteam:
Punching screw holes in the felt. First time I've used this leather punch tool -- I bought it in a bargain bin a couple years ago, for $3.99. Well, good investment -- It worked perfectly for the wipers.
vtsteam:
In order to fit the rear bearing seal, I realized that I needed to make a spindle spacer -- it goes between the rear pulley and the rear bearing. I took its O.D. from the front spindle boss, since my front and rear bearing covers are the same size. That's a little under 2 inces across. The I.D. needed to fit the rear of the spindle -- that's a little over an inch in diameter. The length of the spacer needed to be about an inch long.
So I began looking for 2" diameter scrap aluminum, at least 1 inch long. And I came up with this big sprue. Looking at it more carefully, I saw stamped on it "Al- Cu 4." Now why did I stamp a sprue? Oh yes, it's an aluminum copper alloy I experimented with in an earlier thread https://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,10705.50.html -- and made the lathe's bed end bracket with in this thread.
Since it's been a couple years I wondered if it's properties had improved through aging. The non-artificial type!
Anyway it was just the right size, so I requisitioned it. :dremel:
vtsteam:
It seemed to machine about the same as my typical cast aluminum. Maybe a little finer finish, but with the same ready tendency to weld a chip to the lathe tool and mess that up. It felt "crunchy", as noted before, not chewey, in case that means anything to anybody!
vtsteam:
And here is the finished spacer, along with a piece of the sprue. To me, in very bright sunlight, I thought I could detect a very subtle copper tone to it, but maybe that was just my imagination.
I still don't know if it's any stronger than my conventional cast aluminum ( I use pistons, mostly). But the specs say so, so I'll accept that.
.
PK:
Nice job on the wipers. Brings back memories of a set I made a while back.
Lets just leave it at "NEVER cut felt with a laser!"
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