Using the lathe for turning balls and adding a radius to rod ends is a common enough occurrence for me to warrant specialized tooling. Years ago I bought a kit version of such a tool with the frame made out of aluminum. It worked, but it was difficult to set the tool depth and it's lightweight design (like a tuning fork) meant that it wanted to chatter during cuts. Something better was needed.
The Jensen 55 rebuild continues with making some new teflon gaskets and the general assembly of the cleaned, polished and painted parts back onto the main board with the completed engine and boiler. Two videos are also available at the end of this article to show the steam engine operating off of steam: one video demonstrates the slow-running capabilities of the engine while the other shows the engine driving a toy machine shop.
Bought this Jensen 55 a few years ago at the Cabin Fever Expo auction in Lebanon, PA. It's been sitting around patiently but now it's time to get to work and bring this engine back to it's former glory. The Jensen 55's gimmick is that it uses two cylinders timed so that at least one is in a power stroke. This allows the engine to be self-starting and run very smoothly at slow speeds.
Dumore has been making quality high-speed electric tools since such a thing has been in existence. While well known in the machinist world for their lathe tool post grinders, they also sell a nice sensitive drill press that's optimized for small work. In this article I will show you a bit about the drill press, some recommendations about small drills and a fixture plate that makes it easier to handle small work.
The X axis DRO scale would prove to be the most challenging part of this DRO installation as I wanted to ensure I didn't lose any of the mill's Y axis movement. This meant the scale would have to be installed at the front of the mill table. For extra difficulty, I also wanted to have adjustable X axis hard stops and working power feed limits. All these features would have to fit in a relatively small amount of space.
Construction continues on the PM Research Number 2 Steam engine so make sure to check out Part 1 of this build if you haven't already. It's time to go back to the lathe and experiment with using CA adhesive aka Crazy Glue for holding small parts. The CA glue is used to temporary hold parts to a scrap aluminum round and is easily released with heat or a soak in acetone.
After building Mr Pete's wobbler from bar stock, I felt confident enough to tackle a casting kit from PM Research: the entry-level Steam Engine #2. Since this engine is basically the same design as the other wobbler, the challenge with this build will be dealing with castings which can sometimes be tricky to machine. Also, you only get one shot making a part so if you screw it up, you will have to order a replacement from the manufacturer.
For a mill, the DRO Z axis configuration seems to come in a few flavors. Some installations attach the scale to the quill, while others measure the movement of the knee. Some complicated setups can use scales on both the quill and knee at the same time so that the final Z axis number displayed on the controller is a combination of both scales. For this Grizzly G0678 mill, I will use one scale to measure the knee movement.
Collets are a valuable piece of tooling for any lathe. With less run-out than a typical scroll chuck, they firmly grip the work without marring while being contained in a small, streamlined package. In this article I will describe constructing my first collet chuck which was machined from a single piece of bar stock. This chuck, which uses ER32 spring collets, will screw onto the spindle of the lathe in comparison to this lathe's native 6K collets which seat directly inside the spindle with a draw bar.
When you are installing DRO scales, they must be placed so that they are working within the same plane as what they are measuring. The instructions provided with the scales state they must be parallel and perpendicular to the machine slide movement within 0.1mm (.004"). Unfortunately, most of the cast surfaces of the mill are not square to the machined surfaces, mostly due to pattern draft. We will have to install square surfaces onto the mill for scale attachment points.