.png)
Tweet
Thanks for the comments! The design was presented to us by the school - I did not design it. I just noticed that the tool being clamped in the second picture is not a piece of keyway stock as I said in the O.P. but a carbide radius cutter. Both my eyes and the vise are over a half century old so I hope this will serve as an adequate excuse for my mistake *LOL*
[EDIT] One humorous and one tragic story:
As stated in my original post I had been dreaming about becoming a machinist since I was 12 years old, therefore I was very excited about my opportunity to be included in the vocational pilot program. On the first day of our first-year class we were handed a piece of 1 1/2" O.D. CRS which was about 5" long to make the aforesaid (OP) screw jack. We were required to chuck it "true" in a four jaw chuck using a piece of chalk to mark the runout and then adjust accordingly till it ran concentric with the lathe spindle. Despite my best efforts I was unable to grasp the gist of things and by the end of the session I had still not gotten the accursed piece of stock running true. That was a long bus ride home. I was convinced that I would never be a machinist since I was unable to accomplish this first assigned task. I was almost literally in tears. Part of my duties during my last 15 years of employment was to teach a basic machine shop class. We did not use the 4 jaw but one of the students inquired about it having seen it in the shop and I proceeded to show him, and the rest of the class, how it worked. To demonstrate "chucking true" I put a very pointed tool bit (threading tool) in the toolholder and brought it to the "high side" of the runout then adjusted. I kept doing this until I had to use a magnifying glass on the last adjustments. I then checked it with an indicator and it was within .002 runout. Out of nowhere I was reminded of that first day of tech school and I had to smile.
There was always a competition among the students regarding our progress as we were expected to complete a certain amount of projects each year. Our names were posted publicly on a board for all to see when we completed a project and what our grade was. There were three of us who were always very close in this competition: myself, Jay and Dale. Dale was always just a slight bit ahead but he cheated *LOL* his grandfather was a retired tool and die maker and had a home shop. He had been tutoring Dale at his shop long before he was in the tech school. Jay and I were pretty close in terms of ability and though not far behind Dale had to give it our all to compete with one another. Sometimes Jay would come in with his project first and sometimes I would. The three of us however were good friends. I lost track of Dale and Jay after graduation but knew that Jay was going to join the Navy. Thirty years later I worked with a guy, Stan, who went to my high school and was in the same year. While reminiscing about our school days he mentioned Jay. I had no idea that he even knew him. It turns out that he and Jay were pretty good friends and he told me that Jay had been killed in Vietnam. That's impossible, I told him, Jay was going into the Navy. It turns out that Jay was assigned to a helicopter which was rescuing wounded troops and his copter was shot down. Jay is buried in the local military cemetery in my town and I have visited the grave several times, once not long ago which was also a prompt to post this project to the boards. Each time as I stand before his grave a flood of memories of those old days washes over me including this, our last project. Jay and I both got an A on it.
[EDIT] One humorous and one tragic story:
As stated in my original post I had been dreaming about becoming a machinist since I was 12 years old, therefore I was very excited about my opportunity to be included in the vocational pilot program. On the first day of our first-year class we were handed a piece of 1 1/2" O.D. CRS which was about 5" long to make the aforesaid (OP) screw jack. We were required to chuck it "true" in a four jaw chuck using a piece of chalk to mark the runout and then adjust accordingly till it ran concentric with the lathe spindle. Despite my best efforts I was unable to grasp the gist of things and by the end of the session I had still not gotten the accursed piece of stock running true. That was a long bus ride home. I was convinced that I would never be a machinist since I was unable to accomplish this first assigned task. I was almost literally in tears. Part of my duties during my last 15 years of employment was to teach a basic machine shop class. We did not use the 4 jaw but one of the students inquired about it having seen it in the shop and I proceeded to show him, and the rest of the class, how it worked. To demonstrate "chucking true" I put a very pointed tool bit (threading tool) in the toolholder and brought it to the "high side" of the runout then adjusted. I kept doing this until I had to use a magnifying glass on the last adjustments. I then checked it with an indicator and it was within .002 runout. Out of nowhere I was reminded of that first day of tech school and I had to smile.
There was always a competition among the students regarding our progress as we were expected to complete a certain amount of projects each year. Our names were posted publicly on a board for all to see when we completed a project and what our grade was. There were three of us who were always very close in this competition: myself, Jay and Dale. Dale was always just a slight bit ahead but he cheated *LOL* his grandfather was a retired tool and die maker and had a home shop. He had been tutoring Dale at his shop long before he was in the tech school. Jay and I were pretty close in terms of ability and though not far behind Dale had to give it our all to compete with one another. Sometimes Jay would come in with his project first and sometimes I would. The three of us however were good friends. I lost track of Dale and Jay after graduation but knew that Jay was going to join the Navy. Thirty years later I worked with a guy, Stan, who went to my high school and was in the same year. While reminiscing about our school days he mentioned Jay. I had no idea that he even knew him. It turns out that he and Jay were pretty good friends and he told me that Jay had been killed in Vietnam. That's impossible, I told him, Jay was going into the Navy. It turns out that Jay was assigned to a helicopter which was rescuing wounded troops and his copter was shot down. Jay is buried in the local military cemetery in my town and I have visited the grave several times, once not long ago which was also a prompt to post this project to the boards. Each time as I stand before his grave a flood of memories of those old days washes over me including this, our last project. Jay and I both got an A on it.
One of each in alu, brass and stainless. They're going to be a necklace for a guy I met at the worm conference this summer (I work on soil nematodes) after he saw a set I made for the worm art show. I know, I know
Comment