Wednesday, July 27, 2011

"Follower" Rest

Got home today around 10pm. Kind of tired from work but since my dearest wasn't back from a prayers meeting for a boy with tumor, the shop looked welcoming. It'll be a short session, I promised myself, as I've a long day a head tomorrow, with last appointment starting at 9pm at a home in Yishun. I'll be focus to get the quick-fix follower rest working.

From the previous session, I observed that the 1/4" brass finger being in the way of the spinning tailstock center. A tapered end with a cut off should work. I fastened it down to the vise of the manual mill to cut the notch so that it can press against the turning stock on the top and against the cutting force. No measurements were taken; just eyeballing the depth and step over to what I felt is right.

I re-clamp the finger at an angle in the vise to mill the taper.

The finished work mounted in the A2Z QC holder:



I did some test cut with the QCTP at various angles. Best result was with the finger very slightly behind the cutting tool.




Managed to get 0.01mm difference in diameter across the cut length of about 55mm. Sweet!!!

A video to go along:
Sorry for the shaky video. It was taken with one hand holding the iPhone and the other turning the handwheel. Maybe I should get a real camera. But the Proxxon lathe comes first. Let's see how things turns out.

Edit: I would like to give credit to Alan Haisley of the Yahoo! Sherline Group for the idea on creating the notch on the brass finger.  Missed the mention due to disruptions when preparing the post.

- Posted using BlogPress from iPhone

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wong, that's great results, looks like you are getting a handle on this stuff!
You put me to shame as I haven't been in my shop for weeks.

GeneK

Wongster said...

GeneK,

Thanks for your encouragement. Only hope that the setup is repeatable.

I hope that I can do more in the shop and get up to speed in my learning.

I'm collecting the lathe DRO kit in a while. Want to find time to set it up. No news on the follower rest. Sigh...

Regards,
Wong