The Home Machinist!

Anybody with LED lighting notice the wagon wheel effect on rotating machinery? I have electronic ballast fluorescent lighting in my shop, but in one bedroom I have a Hubbel LED fixture. In that room you can see the fan blades on the floor fan “wagon wheeling” from the strobe of the LED light. If I h...

Wiha also makes a line of screwchisels with the steel caps, like Wera. My only gripe with that type is that they are really heavy and provide absolutely no isolation against accidental electrical contact. But they are pretty awesome screwchisels. IMHO Wiha is the best value. If you watch their websi...

I had to break out the face plate to turn down a transmission part yesterday. It is a clutch apply plate. I was lazy and tried to do it in a three jaw, but ended up with about .006” difference in thickness, so I clamped it to the front of my face plate and made a second cut. Got the difference down ...

The table explains why I had to cut aluminum seatposts out of titanium bicycle frames more than once.

I’d try applying adheasive vinyl to a chunk of aluminum then cutting out a wood grain pattern. Maybe use some sort of chemical (read Drano) etching. Could probably soften the look after peeling the vinyl with a brush, or possibly do the entire process with a brush, or maybe soaked fine threads laid ...

That should be a cool build.

IMHO it is hard to beat a hydraulic splitter with a regeneration valve so you have two extend speeds.

Interesting. I got a surprise a little over a decade ago when I built something. I took it to Laguna Seca raceway, a Pleasanton CA Good Guys car show and had it on some online forums. People loved it, probably hundreds of photos were taken. For me to build them I figured they would cost me about twi...

I’m not on the sleeve or collar bandwagon with something as small as a #50. A little over a month ago I made a tool that had 24 #56 holes drilled in it, with a wall thickness between the holes of about .018” Personally I found when drilling that small I had the spindle speed cranked to ludicrous spe...

Excellent!

Thanks for the lead.

If you decide you want to go with graphite you might check ebay for Cadweld molds. Cadwelding is not as popular as it once was for electrical contractors and electric utilities, alot of the old molds get pitched in the trash or resold. Might be a good cheap source of graphite.

I can make these out of stainless on my milling machine and finish them off with a file but they take hours to make.

Anybody willing to try a small run on a wire EDM?

Check out the attached photo. Wall thickness of the circumference is .5mm