Member postings for John Reese

Count me among those who say bomb hoist.

If you are not sure what the graduations mean set up a dial indicator and see how far the slide moves with respect to the number of graduations you dial in.

It is unfortunate there is confusion between wench and winch. One is associated with pleasure and the other with work.

I find negative rake tools give the best finish on cast iron especially on interrupted cuts. If you are close to finished height on the base it would be unwise to take another cut to get a better finish. I suggest working the casting on a sheet of abrasive paper on a flat surface to improve the surface finish.

As I recall Komet had number of bastard size inserts that were only available from Komet.

Excellent workmanship. Be proud!

Except for GHT's book I have never seen a rotary table set up for stops. I have owned several rotary tables and all had degree markings on the OD of the table. Greensand's RT does not appear to have graduations on the table or the worm. There are web sites that permit one to create custom dials or scales. I suggest printing a scale 0 to 360 and the length equal to the circumference of his TR. Glue the scale to the rim of the RT. When rounding the ends of work or rounding corners I think it would be sufficiently accurate to work from degree mark to degree mark.

If itis a spacer and the bore will be hidden why worry about finish,

I would prefer soaking in Evaporust over application of abrasives.

If you expect to use a hole saw you need a keyed chuck. A hole saw will over tighten a keyless chuck.

I have a 1/4 capacity Albrecht keyless, a 1/2 capacity Grizzly integral shank keyless, and a 3/4 capacity keyed ball bearing Jacobs.

https://www.mcmaster.com/eyebolts/flat-shoulder-rod-end-bolts-5/

They are also available without the shoulder and also as blanks that are not threaded or drilled.

Little Machine Shop has a nice feed/speed calculator:

**LINK**

You can make pin drills from silver steel. Make or buy? It depends on what your time is worth to you. If you buy counterbores I suggest going for those with interchangeable pilots.

I suspect that coated endmills are unnecessary on hobby sized machines. They don't have enough horsepower to benefit from a coating. When a coating is applied it blunts the cutting edge, I think uncoated HSS tools with a sharp cutting edge are best in light machines. I have a 3h Bridgeport and most of the endmills I have are uncoated HSS. I do have a couple of carbide insert face mills

I figure there are so many suggestions because each contributor has a different mix of machines and tooling. I could have done it on my mill with my Volstro rotary milling attachment. It could be done on a RT on the mill. Both of those methods involves a single setup.

I would set the plate up in a mill then edge find and locate the center. I would use a boring head to trepan a hole slightly under 75mm. I would probably have to flip the part and trepan from the other side. After I had a through hole I would use the boring head to bring the hole to finished size. Next I would chuck the part on the ID in a 3-jaw chuck. I would use a trepanning tool to knock off most of the corners. I would probably have to flip the part and work from both sides. After that I would finish the OD to size.

That saves farting around to get the plates centered in the 4-jaw. A hole saw could be used to make the undersized hole. Drilling some through holes along the track of the hole saw will facilitate clearing chips.

Just one more way to skin the cat.

If drilled hole tolerance is acceptable try a 3 or 4 flute core drill. On thin material a 2 flute drill tends to make a 3 lobed hole. The core drill would eliminate the lobing.

When working with the vise it stays near the middle of the table. When I use the RT or dividing head I slide the vise to the left of the table. My vise is keyed to the table so I don't have to tram it every time I move it.

The chrome plating on piston rod material is usually .0005" thick. The induction hardened material can vary in thickness. As I remember it is .03" to .06" thick.

I cut the bar in a horizontal band saw using a bi-metal blade. It is not necessary to grind through plating and hardened surface.

For lathe work I drop the speed while machining off the hardened layer, no other special procedures are needed.

The base material for the rod is usually 1045 but sometimes it will be 4140.