On Saturday 21 July 2012 10:51:04 andy pugh did opine: > On 21 July 2012 05:21, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> wrote: > > It looks like I am stuck with the 3.5mm allen socket to drive this. > > I can't help feeling that a Torx head would be easier to make,as it is > just about mill-able.
With sub .03125" mills. Some slop in the grooves is probably un-avoidable with any mill that can reach 4mm depth in a straight plunge cut. Probably made dangerous for that small a mill as the post sled way on my mill has developed a stiction problem and descends in .002" increments of late when moving at creep speeds. No amount of gib adjusting seems to effect it, but drowning in it vactra fixes it for 5 minutes maybe. There are a lot of hours on this mill, one gear has wobbled out the keyway in its hub already, and its getting very noisy again. The bearings seem to be holding up, better than I expected since you have to beat on the end of the draw bolt to change tooling with a couple lbs of steel, but those plastic gears have got to go. I'm going deaf listening to them. Thinking on milling it, I think it would be better to drill the hole pattern, and use that same teeny drill to put a pilot hole in the center, then drill out the center with very sharp bits. I'll play with some plastic today just for S&G's. > It might take some experimenting and tweaking (maybe in a block of > plastic) to get the shape right, though. Humm, some of that micarta I made the pcb palate from might do. HDPE has buckets of spring back as I found when I went to make some faces for the fence on my router table. This micarta throws up a ridge around a tapped hole, but at least it stays thrown up, the screw does fit the hole. So I drill & tap, then mill the pocket, which mills away the ridge where it counts. That was also my original thought Andy, until I went looking for specs on the torx form that I could write gcode from. Either my google fu is bad, or its proprietary & unpublished. Its not mentioned at all in my Machinery's Handbook either, issue #27. Unk if its included in newer versions. If you have a URL to a spec for the torx stuff, I'd sure appreciate it. > > 2. I have a live center for this mini-lathe, and if I really really > > snug down the tailstock clamp, it might make 200 + lbs of push. > > Likely not enough to push it straight in. > > You could perhaps augment the tailstock clamp with things clamped to > the bed behind it. That would be tried if I can't hold it with the bolt/square plate washer it uses now. TBT, that square plate needs to be, and there is room for it, twice as thick. > If it fails, you could probably finish it off with a hammer…. Either way, I'll have to chuck up a block of something and drill & tap a 7mmx1.00 hole to hold it against the beating. If I give it a good coat of moly sulfide grease, I should be able to unscrew it from the scrap even it this drill rod expends a hair in the process. But first we play with some plastic. Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up! Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
