Hi Chaps
Back on line
I've been threatening to make a tapping stand for some time its one of those jobs that you know will make your work better, but you keep getting by with what you've got
.
I've kept my eyes open for odd bits and pieces for a stand for some time this is what was in my collection:-
1:- A cast iron cube that was origonaly from some sort of jig I pick it up when visiting a firm that does subcontract work for my company they were throwing out a couple of these cubes and I managed to cadge one FREE.
2:- Some 12mm dia mild steel rod from a cast out school retort stand
3:- A bit of ally bar, bit of 30mm steel bar, bit of 25mm brass bar picked up from the scrap yard for a few pence.
4:- A couple of black plastic machine handles that followed me home.
5:- A small Jacobs Chuck picked up at the loco club annual tool auction for 50p
First job was to drill and tap the cast iron cube M6 to take the thread that was already on one end of the 12 mm rod, cut the rod off to length and clean it up a bit and screw it in.
Then the ally bar was cleaned up with a fly cutter, on end was drilled 12mm to take the rod(sorry no pics of this)
the other end was drilled then using a boreing head opened out to 18mm
The bar was then turned through 90deg and the 12mm hole end slit with a slitting saw then drilled and tapped M5 and one half drilled out M5 clearance to make a split clamp
The small handle had a M10 thread in the end so an adaptor was turned up with M10 at one end and M5 at the other this was loctited in the handle to make a clamp screw
A small washer was made that just slipped in the slot to act as a stop so that the clamping forces wouldn't close in the slot to much and make it dificult to adjust.
A brass bearing bush was turned with a good length so that the rod would slide up and down but wouldn't be too sloppy, this was loctited in place
A steel knurled collar was made to slide up the tapping rod,
One end of the tapping rod was turned down to be a nice fit on the counter bore register in the end of the chuck it was then threaded 3/8 UNF and the chuck screwed on and it concentricity checked because I'd made use of the register run out was 0.07mm, that'll do me.
The other end of the rod was threaded 1/2 BSW to take the larger handle as this was on a 12mm rod I didn't get a complete thread but there was enough there to make it fit for function especialy as the handle already had a couple of grub screws to lock everything in place
The chuck and the collar were fixed in place with loctite.
That,s it job done
for less than a squid.
Cheap skate Stew
