Author Topic: Small projects  (Read 5401 times)

Offline mechman48

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Small projects
« on: August 07, 2013, 02:25:10 PM »
Spent some time doing a couple of small projects this week, haven't got round to anything major yet, seem to have been caught up in making stuff to make stuff with if you get my drift. the first is a keyway cutter from an article in an old MEW mag, don't know the name of the author but if you recognise it ..thanks for the idea. I made it with a small keyway in mind...  1/8"... to start with, but can be added to for larger keyways later on. Found I didn't have a 1/8" HSS bit  when I started it but I had paid a call to the Pickering steam rally last weekend & managed to pick up a couple of pieces from one of the dealer stalls for a couple of quid, along with some indexible tips that I was on the lookout for. It is made out of bits & pieces from material in my odds 'n' sods box & a couple of SHCS.

 

The other item was to somehow fix up  a depth scale on to my bench drill, these Chinese drills sometimes come with a screwed rod with two locking nuts attached to the drill casting alongside a scale fitted onto the main body, but this one didn't.. so what to do? I had a spare vertical DRO that I had taken off another machine as it was ,as I though defunct, giving me spurious readings all over the place(since replaced), I thought faint heart never wins so set to & removed the battery, checked contacts gave them a brush with one of those fibre glass brushes that sparkies / inst. techs use for contact / PCB cleaning, removed the back off the head & cleaned what I could in the same manner, refitted all the screws & made sure that all the screws were tightened up, replaced the battery & 'yippee' it works! don't ask me what the fault was, haven't a clue? it works ok now! so I sez I'll use that 

Having found some plastic to use as a backing plate I set to & removed the switch box from the drill & measured up the screw hole centres & marked & drilled the plastic accordingly, eventually with a bit of fiddling about got it mounted to the drill. I found that the length of the scale prevented me from attaching it to the bracket at the correct height, so, a bit of judicious cutting with a Dremel removed about 20mm from the end of the scale which gave me the room to fit it at the required height. Next was how do I attach the scale to the quill?, I had visions of messing about with ally plate, changing to a 4 jaw chuck, boring diameters etc. when I spotted the original flip up guard that had a broken polycarbonate shield which I had removed some time ago... aha! light bulb comes on..  :scratch:  off came the springs, a bit of sawing, filing to clean things up, a couple of holes drilled, a bit of 10 mm ally from the bits box drilled & tapped to suit, radius filed to suit curve of collar & voila!  :thumbup: bracket made.. fitted it to quill & bolted to DRO scale courtesy of two holes already in the scale & Bob's your auntie..  :thumbup:  having got everything back together time for a test drive, set quill to top, set zero, moved quill down.. luvverly jubbly, nice smooth action, & DRO reading steady with no flickering or spurious readings... job's a good 'un..  :clap:   

« Last Edit: August 07, 2013, 03:03:10 PM by mechman48 »
George.


Always look on the bright side of life, & remember.. KISS..' Keep It Simple Stupid'