I do a decent amount of work on my metal lathe, and I've been known to set my pants on fire while welding.
In the final video of the series, I finish machining the stop, only to find out I won’t be able to use the thumb screws i purchased after all. After recovering from the thumb screw issue, i demonstrate how I lap parts, and how the stop functions when in use. Now that it’s all said an done, I think this was a good project for me to break in the new mill with, as it let me learn what the limits of the machine are.
In the second installment of this series I machine all the critical features of the stop. I demonstrate how to accurately measure the depth of a v grove as well as a little trick to get around not having a DRO.
Making a carriage stop for my lathe, whats one of my first milling projects when I got into machining 10 years ago. While my original design has served me well for many years, I’ve decided to make some design tweaks, that will hopefully improve it. The following video is the first in what will be a short series, documenting the construction of my new stop.
If you’ve been following any of my recent posts, you know I’ve been making space in my tool chest. The tool(s) I was making space for, was a 1/32nd set of 5C collets from Mari tool. A set of good collets is not cheap, but if they are properly cared for they can last a lifetime. Thus, when they arrived the other day I thought others might find the inspection, cleaning, and storage process interesting.
When I opened the cardboard shipping box, I found several small hand labeled bags, each containing 2 collets. Each collet was coated in a layer of oil/grease, and sealed in an air tight plastic bag.
My latest little shop reorganization project was to make a wall rack for all my AXA QCTP holders. The rack is a fairly simple design, but to longer to make than I expected. Drilling and counter-boring 68 holes was the big time consumer, but required to mount the holders they way I wanted. I wanted the holders orientated just like they would be be on the tool post, so that i could easily recognize what one was what. As with my last several storage projects, it made from Baltic birch plywood, and birch hardwood.
