Day 2: Caster/Camber Plate Build
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First I have a really stupid question. Can someone please tell me how to change the title discription message in my post when I reply to it? I want to be able to say something new about what I am doing as I progress along in this thread. I noticed others do this, but I can't figure it out!
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The day was good. I did not get as much done as I had hoped, but progress was made! I spent the second half of the day turning parts on my lathe. For the machinists in the group, you will be bored, but for the curious, read on.
The lathe I own is an old Hendy. It was built in about 1939. First purchased by the US Navy, it served early life in the belly of an aircraft carrier during world war II. It swings about 12 inches with 54 inches between centers. It is about 10 feet long and weighs about 5000 pounds! They do not make them like this anymore.
After picking out enough discs from my pile for 5 sets, plus a few chasers (chasers are spares that follow the process in case I make a mistake), I debured them and then proceeded to fit them to a set of soft jaws. Soft jaws are aluminum jaws for the chuck that can be machined to fit the parts you are making. Soft jaws provide a very high degree of repeatability for very accurate parts.
Finished machined jaws.
With the parts ready for the lathe, I first pilot dril them with a 1/4 inch cobalt, split point stub drill. Split point stubs are stiffer because of their short length (do not wander as much) and cut faster than the standard jobber drills because of the agressive geometry ground on the ends.
After the drilling, I face off the first side and dust off the outside diameter of the disc.
I managed to get all the discs surfaced on one side and the edges turned today. I also started drilling out some of the centers of the discs and facing off the back sides. Tomorrow, I should finish all of the lathe work for the main discs. This first five sets of caster/camber plates are well on their way!!
Take care,
David
Edited by firstgencrx, 27 June 2007 - 11:20 PM.