The Home Machinist!

Building a drill sharpener is FAR easier than building a cutter grinder - the only optional attachment you might want is a point splitter. Material cost is moderate, typically about $130, mainly for a CBN wheel, motor, and collets. See: http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/DrillSharp.html#Facet4 Drills cut ...

I built a Brooks grinder and made a simple attachment for sharpening flutes of end mills. The Brooks is a serious project, not to be undertaken lightly; it took me several months. The flute attachment was trivial and works adequately for the home shop. See: http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/Brooks_Grinde...

Your post inspired me to document how I make counterbores from drill rod.
http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/CounterBore.html

Might be worth trying for your project since your work piece is aluminum.

John

If you're going to be making more of these parts over time, I'd make a form tool to fit the tailstock. You're working aluminum so a tool made from drill rod and hardened should last quite a while and would be easy to resharpen. There was a clockmaking site that showed how to make piloted counterbore...

It's difficult to take the last thou off with a lathe tool, especially if you're moving back and forth between press and lathe because re-mounting may induce a little eccentricity so the part becomes lobed. When fit to tenths is required I use lapping - it is more controllable plus it reduces any lo...

Steve: I think you understand what Mike Cox did perfectly, the cutter does rotate on a fixed axis. In your prior thread I mentioned that I used the approach you outlined above. That is, the broach holder's axis is set at about 1 degree to the work axis (by rotating the QCTP) and the center of the br...

The broach end does need to be concave - here's one way to make the one you have concave: http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Tooling/BroachMaking/broachmaking.html I drilled the end prior to hardening but the Dremel scheme lets you make it concave after hardening. The chips formed by the broach curl ...

A rotary broach is the usual way to make a 6 sided hole - but they're too expensive for the typical home shop. Mike Cox came up with an inexpensive, modest effort way to make a rotary broach in the home shop, see: http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/rotary-broaching.html I made one as an experiment and ...

I found this drawing helpful: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/JoelinTX/ProtractorBW.jpg I printed the drawing and keep it in the box with the protractor. Still takes me a while to figure out how to use the protractor each time. The protractor is quite accurate considering the cost. It works a...

Below is a file storage rack I saw in a friend's shop. It is wood and mounts to the wall as suggested in your post. I haven't built one but it looks straight forward - strips of wood screwed together with spacers to form slots. It does require handles to prevent the files from falling through the sl...

I've had good results double drilling by adding "Secondary Point Angles" (SPA's) to drills greater than 3/16. Picture: http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/6_Facet_SplitPointC.jpg Much less excitement as you start to enter the hole because the drill doesn't have a point at the outer end of the flu...

If you don't mind using steel for the clamp then consider copying the principle used by Starrett. I made the copy seen below with the part holding the tooth index longer than normal. It seems to hold two rods in a relation similar to the clamp you built. I use a similar clamp on the QCTP holder for ...