Ok, do you ever have one of those days that everything seems to go not-so-good, and takes 3 times as long? Well I've just had one of those days.
I started out by center-drilling the bore.
![](http://velvet-art.smugmug.com/photos/544646851_DYT5u-XL.jpg)
I then drilled it with a 1/4" drill, then 3/8" and then 1/2" ( the biggest drill I have, I really must some bigger drills as it's a lot quicker to bore with a drill than to bore with a boring bar ) and then set up with a boring bar with enough sticking out to reach through to the other side of the Pulley blank.
![](http://velvet-art.smugmug.com/photos/544648076_wfWrh-XL.jpg)
Then things stopped going smoothly. I had bored out the bore until it was 1mm under-size, and decided to try my hand at cutting the key-way. Not having done this kind of thing before I ground up a Hss blank to be the right size for the key. I ground a shallow angle kinda like a woodchisel (and this may well be the error of my ways).
When trying to cut the keyway I found that the pressure would rotate the QC-toolpost, digging the tool in harder and causing progress to stop. So I thought that I could perhaps dig out most of the keyway-waste-material on the mill with a 6mm (the smallest cutter I have) mill.
![](http://velvet-art.smugmug.com/photos/544646505_Hper6-XL.jpg)
But I still had the same problem of the tool digging in and rotating the toolpost holder. I tried to tighten the toolpost holder up but only succeeded in breaking off the handle on the toolpost
![:bang:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/BangHead.gif)
So in frustration (and not thinking that it would be better to just pause and perhaps take a break ) I decided to make 3 cuts using a hacksaw (now now, I may be a bit daft, but I can still hear your laughing
![:lol:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/kranke_200-1.gif)
) to get rid of most of the waste.
![](http://velvet-art.smugmug.com/photos/544646607_GLhiF-XL.jpg)
It was at this point I decided to leave that particular part of this project as if I kept at it much more I might have had to retrieve the pulley from next door's back yard. Thinking about it now, if I cant get to grips with cutting the key-way on the lathe I might do as someone has suggested in the plans, and use the spacer-collar already fitted to the mill and just bore out the pulley to be a good press fit with some loctite.
Finally some sense raised its head ( I dunno where it was prior to this
![:scratch:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/icon_scratch.gif)
) and I decided to remount the pulley the other way round in the 4jaw, center it, and then turned the OD's of the 2 pulley sections.
![](http://velvet-art.smugmug.com/photos/544646682_tyHw7-XL.jpg)
I then tried to set my compound to make the cuts for the inner sides of the V parts of the pulleys, and came across a flaw in my lathe. My C2 has those nifty little DRO's incorporated into the compound and cross slides, these sit a little proud and prevent you from setting the compound to any angle greater than 45degrees, and as the plans call for 71Degrees ( total of 38 degrees from edge to edge of the V, so splitting that gives me 19 degrees of 90, if you follow what I mean, but please correct me if I'm wrong)
So without modifying the lathe I think I'll have to grind up a Hss toolblank to 19 degrees to form the tapered V, unless any one of you experienced machinests can give me a better way of doing this?
So that's as far as I got today, now I'm (virtually) off to find out what I can about cutting key-ways. Nothing like bolting the door after the horse has locked
![:scratch:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/icon_scratch.gif)
errm, or something like that
![:lol:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/kranke_200-1.gif)
Tim