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| MadNick:
Afternoon, Im looking for some design advice please on a tool I am fabricating for use with my lathe. The idea was to bolt this to the top slide and then via an arm attached to the turret, cut a radius. Having looked around the web before starting and after two or three revisions I came up with the attached design. Given my base is steel and the turret is ali, should I be looking at using a bearing between the two or would this be over engineering? I look forward to your suggestions. Nick |
| Lew_Merrick_PE:
Nick, The issue with steel on aluminum is that aluminum ends up with an oxide coating -- the same stuff normally associated with "sandpaper." It is counter-intuitive, but aluminum will wear most steels long before the steel wears the aluminum. In normal usage, this should not be an issue so long as you lubricate surfaces each time you use it. A thin UHMW PE (Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene) washer is another cheap and easy solution. To those who will say that I am being too conservative on this, I had a customer back in the 1970's who made parts that had to be cut and routed using long aluminum skate tracks. The skate carriages were made out of medium carbon steel with a heat treated glide plate. The carriages would be worn to non-compliance (tolerance) within 100 parts. A simple UHMW PE insert solved the problem. I have run into this exact situation with fair regularity, so I am sensitized to the more than most. Good luck with your radius cutting attachment. |
| DaveH:
Nick, Do you mean a bearing between the two flat pieces or a bearing between the shaft and the hole? :beer: DaveH |
| MadNick:
Thanks fellas, @Dave, I would suggest either but if I have to use a bearing would favour a taper roller on the Turret shaft due to the lateral force when cutting. Nick |
| 75Plus:
Hi Nick, May I suggest that you do a search for "Ball Turner". You will find many pages of discussion on this subject as well as some neat designs. Joe |
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