A Quick Drill Press Setup

Working on some new extrusion slices for our Etsy shop. I have to drill a hole in the face of the slice at the top and needed to do it fairly accurately.

I made some fences on the drill press x/y table (actually an old Palmgren x/y rotary table, be jealous.) with steel parallels. Found the edge of one and moved over to the theoretical centerline of the slice.

Because I didn't have that much travel I used a 1-2-3 block to pick up the location of the other fence and moved the spindle to exactly where the hole needed to be.

The slice placed in position, it was easy to repeatedly drill the holes in the right place.

Some links and pics

Went over to the neighbors the other day...

Aleaha pulls the boys in a wagon...

All around the yard.

Some links:

• Adrian posted his use of scrubbing pads on an arbor. Clever!
• Cool Japanese toys
• A cool sine bar interactive demonstration
• Sandvik has a free online machining course
• Wasan Geometry

Silver and Deming Drill Index

Steve the Locksmith asked if I could take some pics of my home-made Silver and Deming (S&D) drill index. S&D used to mean drills made by Silver and Deming, but now it's come to mean any 1/2" shank twist drill bit. The 1/2" shank allowed use in a Blacksmith's post drill, now it allows the use in the ubiquitous 1/2" Jacobs chuck.
You can buy a Huot drill stand for S&D drill bits, but $40.00 is a lot to spend on organization and Steve is as cheap as I am.

My drill index. No, I don't have a complete set by 64ths of the S&D drills. I pick them up used and resharpen them. Sets can range from a cheap import set by 1/16ths to an insanely expensive US made set by 64ths.

The top surface is a sheet of self stick label paper. I printed up the layout for the holes with teh sizes beneath plus a number of unlabelled holes. I then used a sheet of laminating sheet over it.
I stacked all three pieces together and drilled the holes using the printed locations as a reference. I made the holes slightly over size. And yes, I really need to clean the grime off. It has stayed surprisingly readable over the years.

The panels are held apart by aluminum spacers I made on the lathe. 4 long flat head machine screws hold it all together. The panels are made out of scrap plastic, probably ABS, that I had laying around.

The countersunk flat head screw.

It's a good idea to keep the sides open so all the chips and such can fall out.

Making Wheels From a Scotch-Brite Pad

A friend wanted to know where to buy Dremel 511E EZ Lock Finishing Abrasive Buffs cheaply. Looking around it seemed as though they were a bit over priced (about $1.50 a wheel). I haven't examined them up close but they seem to be a standard non-woven abrasive made into a wheel.

I use Scotch-Brite pads in my shop all the time.

They're available in a variety of grit sizes and the price is about $1.00 a 6"x9" sheet. On Amazon they are $20.00 for a box of 20, Scotch-Brite 6-by-9-Inch Hand Pad, 20-Pads. They are available all over the internet and from most industrial suppliers.

Mandrels are ubiquitous as my drawer shows. You can get mandrels with a screw for about two bucks as well.

So I traced a circle on a pad.

Wow, high tech.

I cut it out with scissors and mounted it on a mandrel. The mandrel screw can just be poked through the center. A washer in the center would make it work slightly better, be more aggressive on the edge. You could even stack a few together.

I also tried using an arch punch. This would dull the punches over time...

This is a finer abrasive.

Some test scratch patterns on silver. They seem to work fine. I'm not sure if they hold up worse than the Dremel branded ones, however from a 6"x9" sheet you can make about 54 (assuming you're perfect) 1" wheels so you can imagine the cost savings if they even last 1/10th as long.

Some Machining Content

Just a few machine pics:

Turning the OD of a magneto pole shoe.

Pressed onto a mandrel and driven by a lathe dog.

Kent made this holder for his tap wrenches.

And tap handles, these are made from Panduit scrap.

A Nice Walk to the Covered Bridge

We went to the annual Library Book Sale on Saturday at the County Fairgrounds, afterwards the weather was nice so we crossed 53rd St. and went for a walk through the OSU research farm.

This is pretty much in the city of Corvallis. Not bad.

A long asphalt road that goes all the way to the campus downtown.

Looking north.

There's a covered bridge!

Max was a little slow.

Turnbuckles tension.

The dramatic rapids...

Trusses.

An exciting plaque.

That's the muddy creek, those rapids above were an illusion.