More Knives

Here are three completed knives in Tulipwood, ABS plastic and Goncalo Alves.

Knife Scales

I bought a cheapo knife kit at Woodcraft. Blade and bolts - just add the wood !

So this is what I came up with. I built a 3D model and machined the scales out of some scraps of Goncalo Alves wood. Beautiful grain ! The finish after milling is not bad - it required very little sanding to fit to the knife handle. Not a bad result for an 11 minute machine run...

Aluminum hot stamp project.

I did this project for a local farrier. He wanted a special stamp made for a run of several hundred. I did all the artwork on the BobCADCAM - including the horseshoe. The cut is .1" and .02" for the letters. It took 3 hrs to run the job. I had an air-hose rigged to blow directly on the bit. Started with 1/8" endmill (which broke after an hour and took a chip off the island - had to restart). I used a 1/32" endmill and a v-tool for cleanup of the lettering. It was a very tedious job - A lot of fighting with the CAM to get it to stop driving an endmill through the middle of features... I hope to get a picture of a finished pad to post.

More machinery - Part 3

Last up is the new drill press ! I am very happy with this beast. It is a Rockwell/Delta 17-600 - vintage 1972. Came from Carver Mass as well. This is the king of drill presses ! It is variable speed - so all you do is turn the speed handle. No belt/pulley changing required ! It has a massive 1-HP motor, and the column must be 4" in diameter. The table is rock solid and you can move the collars and rack anywhere on the column. It is in excellent condition (no "extra" bubba holes drilled in the table) and only needed minor adjustments.

More machinery - part 2

Next up is the W.F. Wells A-7 bandsaw. This came with a drill press from a nice gentleman in Carver Mass. W.F. Wells is still in business and still making saws of a similar design (the AC-7). I called the company and spoke to a nice parts guy who said my saw was built in 1969. He said he thought it was the best one they ever made due to the very beefy guide rollers. He Email-ed a PDF of the manual which explained a lot about how to align everything. It uses a 94" long a 1/2" blade. It needed a little TLC - the pivot bolts were shot - so I made some new bushings out of 1/2" cold rolled steel and put in some new bolts - nice and tight now. Someone used it to hold parts for welding and I had to remove a little slag from the vise to be sure I don't mark up any parts. I'll put in some new belts while I am at it, but it runs straight and true !

Back at it !

Sorry for the long lapse in posting - we had some super-secret prototype development in the works that could not be posted. Then, there was SHOT show - which was very productive. Winter has been rough here - seems like I spent as much time plowing snow as machining.

Last few weeks have been very busy acquiring some new machinery. First up is the 1941 Brown & Sharpe Horizontal Mill - It is a "#2 Plain - light type"... all 3500lbs of it ! This machine came from a small one-man shop in Montague Ma. It was not too bad to move - I hired a rollback tow-truck. The winch pulled it up, and gravity did the work getting it down ! Then I moved it into position by rolling it on pipes. A friend helped mem lower it the final inch and level it.

It came with a decent selection of NMTB 40 arbors. This machine is going to be AWESOME for squaring up stock. It runs great. I had to install a 3-phase rotary converter to power it up. This machine was built back when machinery had real "beauty" to it. Nice curves, brass plates, sturdy parts, and very little concern for safety ! You have to reach over the spinning cutter to shut it off !

BSW

I was having some issues with threads in one of my prototypes. I was using what I had on-hand, and was putting a 6-32 thread on a stainless rod into a hole tapped into 6061 aluminum. Predictably - it did not work very well as stainless is actually very abrasive. So I consulted a long-time friend - AC1L. Richard has forgotten more about machining, radio and nozzle design than I will ever know. He holds more than a few patents and has been encouraging me all along.

He took one look at my project and said "You should try British Standard Whitworth threads."

I have run into these beasties in my 1968 MGB-GT - and they are usually more of an annoyance than a help ! However - they have several nice properties. They have rounded rather than sharp angles and for the size I need, they allow me to use a 1/8" rod without compromising thread engagement (6-32 done properly would require .164" rod) - it also has 40 threads-per-inch - so I think this will allow me to use easy to machine brass instead of stainless. This is a picture of the BSW taps, die, and the test block I made.