Some milling in the lathe

[Buckshot]

Since getting my 11x36 Logan this past January I have been actually making some money with it. Mainly making push through cast bullet size dies, and hollow pointing bullet moulds. In a trade for some work I took in a 4 cavity Hensley & Gibbs mould, which had been abused. You can see the damage to the cavities in the 1st photo below:


After being indicated in, I had to add a .002" shim behind the blocks. You can see it sticking out to the left, below. That is a 1" endmill doing the deed:


Below is the finished result:



I'm glad to say it came out just fine and has been returned to usefullness. The bullets weigh about 3.0grs less, but that's no big deal.

Best,
Rick

[This message has been edited by Buckshot (edited 12-05-2004).]

[Doc Nickel]

Nice work.

Interestingly enough, I had to do something offbeat with my 11x36" Logan today. I'm making a "spider" handle for my mill vise, and needed a hexagonal hole for the vise shaft.

A broach would have been incredibly expensive for a tool I'd only use once (and I can buy commercial spider handles for $25, so the broach would have been silly) and I didn't want to just drill the hole round and use jam screws.

So I ground a bit of clearance on a 3/8" HSS lathe bit, clamped it good in a tool block (it occurred to me later a lantern tool holder would have been better) and used the carrige to broach the flats one at a time.



I just bent a chunk of wire as a pointer to point at a 24-tooth gear in the geartrain, marked every fourth tooth, and "locked" it in each position by engaging the back gear without disengaging the cone.

Had to take a few light passes to keep from straining anything, but the finished product, carefully measured, had to be very lightly tapped into place on the shaft, and fits perfectly. As soon as I shorten the arms (they hit the Y-axis handwheel) I'll post a pic.

Doc.

[This message has been edited by Doc Nickel (edited 12-05-2004).]

[gwinn]

Doc:
I have wanted to make a speeder wrench for the Kurt mill vise and it also requires a hex hole. Your idea prompts me to think I could use a similar lathe tool in either the arbor press if you could keep it all straight or even the drill press with x-y table if you could keep the first two or three passes straight on the drill chuck. Cool!

gwinn

[HTRN]

A short while ago, The HSM or it's sister had an article on making "wobble" broaches. this might be easier to do if you have access to an arbor press.

HTRN

[pkastagehand]

I've done keyways for small flywheels using that method. Cheap, just not too fast. I also made small "broach" out of oil hardening stock to make a square hole for a clock "speed" adjusting tool.