Archive for the ‘lathe’ Category.
December 11, 2008, 1:17 am
I havenât posted in a while, but that doesnât mean Iâm not still busy with something. Right now Iâm probably too busy with many things.
Mark and I have been working on a low-rider rack for his bike for the past many months. One of the last remaining pieces was to make these special fasteners:
If you click the link youâll see a slideshow of how I made this.
Iâve also been working on a generator headlight. It is using a couple of CREE XR-E LEDs and will have a built in standlight which uses a supercap. I figured out the standlight circuit with a lot of help from Steve Kurt and others on this CPF thread. Iâve built most of the circuits on that thread on a prototype board and came up with one that I like.
I made the housing on the lathe. It is a bit large (the outer diameter is around 55mm) and a little heavy, but it looks nice. Click on the link to see more (and Iâll keep adding to this gallery as I do more work, but I probably wonât mention this project again on the blog until it is finished).
Larry was visiting a couple of months back and asked if all of my lathe bits should really be loose in a drawer and knocking into each other. Itâs a good question, and the right answer is no. I spent a little while trying to find good tool foam online, then happned to find a nice package of it at Sears. An hourâs work later and my lathe tool holders were organized. I also found a 12×12â section of foam at Rockler Woodworking which has a hundred or so holes that lathe bits fit into very nicely.
We hired a landscape designer and company to overhaul our yard. The work started this week and so far the progress is awesome. I canât wait to see it all put back together. For now I just have a teaser of the plans.
March 11, 2008, 5:47 am
Racks
Andre and Lee visited a few weeks ago to build a couple of porteur racks. They were finished a few weeks later. Andre’s rack is for a 700C Kogswell P/R fork which he installed onto a Surly Long Haul Trucker. Lee built a rack for his Surly Pugsley.
Andre’s rack on the Kogswell fork:
Lee looking Surly on his Pugsley with the porteur rack (there is also one of me riding the bike):
Head shot of the Pugsley rack showing it’s asymmetric design (remember, the dropouts are not centered):
The Pugs handles pretty well with the big load, those 4″ tires have a lot of pneumatic trail. On the same day Andre proved that the Pugsley tires don’t fit onto standard 559mm rims (even Sun Doublewide) — they require a rim with a deep drop section.
Lathe project for the aquarium
We have a moderately large (60 gallon) planted aquarium in our living room. For a long time I’ve wanted a way to watch the water temp as we fill the aquarium. Our normal method involved one person adjusting the valves on the sink and the other feeling the water coming out of a hose 25′ away.
I used the lathe to make this simple aluminum tube with hose barbs at each end. A liquid crystal thermometer is stuck onto it. It gives instant reading of the fill water temp and didn’t take long to make. This photo isn’t great, but the thermometer reads 76 degrees (the green block in the middle).
And back to Racks…
Finally a picture of how I jigged a Rene Herse style fork crown mount while brazing. This went onto the rack for my Pass and Stow bag that I recently blogged about. A Kant Klamp is clamping the U shaped piece to a bit of flat stock, and that is leaning in the vise.
February 17, 2008, 4:36 am
Rory came over this morning and built the platform for a rack an upcoming bicycle.I used the lathe to make the piece of metal which the bag hooks onto.It centers the bag on the rack and is a slip fit over the 5/16″ rack tubing. I like his compound bends and lowered front stay formaking the bag sit flat even though the hooks sit a little below the bottom of the bag.
This afternoon I worked on my canti boss brazing fixture. It is built around a80/20extrusion using two of their stanchion holders. I make dummy axles on the lathe and asupport for the cantilever bosses using my new mini-mill.
The dummy axles are made from steel. There is a common spacer to adapt them to the 1″ diameter hole that is made from aluminum:
The canti boss holder is made from aluminum.I milled slots for holding the canti fixtures. I have a lot to learn about using the mill:
Here is the mill (a Sieg X2), it was a birthday gift to myself:
