D shaft inserts where to find them?

I need to place a 6mm "D Shaft" into the end of a stainless steel shaft. I don't have any equiment to broach a 6mm D hole and I don't really want to drill a normal hole and secure the flat with a grub screw.

Are there such things as plastic or brass "D" inserts that can be pushed or glued into a normal drilled hole.

I've googled this and can only find ready made knobs which I could break up and retrieve the inserts.

Thanks guys

You would be better off drilling and tapping a hole in the shaft and using a screw, rather than use plastic or brass. If this is for fixing a pulley onto a motor, then definitely not plastic.

If you cannot broach a slot in the shaft, then file one! With a little care, it is feasible to get a good fit. Good practice at filing too!

Andrew.

Would you be able to machine the shaft and fit an insert like in either of these pictures?

The shaft is from a encoder, take a look at the link to see what I'm talking about.

**LINK**

The shaft turns extremely slow so plastic or brass would be OK. If no inserts are available I'll most likely drill and tap for grubscrew.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

Encoders need hardly any torque, all you need is a round hole and a grub screw bearing on the flat. Unless you were very careful a D shaped hole would have some backlash, which would introduce error.

D hubs used to be sold by Stock drive products in USA years ago, I think their UK distributor was HPC or Muffett's. Not sure if they still carry those.

I recently used some D hub drive plates from ServoCity for an industrial job. Link below.

https://www.servocity.com/0-770-clamping-d-hubs

You could also drill an undersize hole and make a piloted broach to be used in an arbour press to do your own D hubs.

Thanks Jeff I'll have a look into these later.