There are two sizes of Quorn ball handles, the large and the small. Ten large, and nine small — all are made in exactly the same manner. I’m not a big fan of rust on machine tools, and these ball handles are used constantly so I felt that painting or plating would eventually wear off. Therefore, I decided to use stainless steel for my ball handles and give them a buffed finish. Before cutting, I made some quick sketches of the handles to make sure my ball turner would have clearance and finalize the process plan.
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Tree Climbing
I learned to climb when I needed to take down about 25 old dangerous white pines at our CT house, and the skill has come in handy here at our MA house too. I’ve got all the trees down now that need climbing, the rest can be felled from the ground, but I’m glad I had the skill for when I needed it.
Cut Knurling Tool Final Assembly
Final Assembly
I began the final assembly with the fitting of the levers. First the height adjust lock lever was installed and a measurement was taken for a test shim. I added an extra 0.01″ to account for the fact that the lever was not tightened at this point. A quick test shim was made without the locking lip.
Height Adjustment Mechanism
Details 9-11, the Height Adjustment Mechanism
Detail 9, the Height Screw Nut is very straight forward, but I didn’t have any 3/16″ brass to start with so I’m turning down some 7/16″ stock which was itself oversize and wouldn’t fit my 7/16″ collet.
Locking Levers
Details 13-15, the Locking Levers and Screws
I decided to challenge myself here a little and instead of making the two piece lever/screw combinations as presented in the article, I chose to make mine in a single piece and again out of the hardened Stainless Steel. So this task begins by knocking down some round stock. My blanks will be 2.5″ long – that’s 3/4″ longer than the Spindle Housing Lock Screw to give me something to chuck on in the lathe.
Spindle Housing
Detail 02, the Spindle Housing
Since I started the Spindle Housings while working on the gears, it was time to finish them. I started by constructing my tooling block to hold the housings while machining the business end. I’m not a big fan of layout fluid, scribing, and center punching so all of my machining was done in the mill using an edge finder and DRO for positioning.
Small and Large Gears
Details 19 & 20, the Small and Large Gears
In Michael’s article, he presents an excellent write-up on gear design and a pseudo-hobbing technique to make custom gears. I didn’t have the tool steel to make the cutter, nor the time to actually cut the gears so I threw a little money at the problem instead. Stock Drive Products/Sterling Instrument is a great company for small mechanical components. Their 64 D.P. 20° Pressure Angle pinion wire Continue reading
Spindle and Wheel Nut
Details 03 & 05, the Spindle and Wheel Nut
After finishing the Tool Holder Head and Arm, I tackled the Spindles next. I need to fit the Spindle Housings to the Tool Holder Head, and in order to make the spindle housings, I need to finish the Spindles first. And, I’ll need the nuts to check the spindle threads. So nuts first and this time I don’t have to start with squaring up round stock. I’ve turned about an inch of 1/2″ 17-4 H1150 down to 0.440″. This is just larger than across the diagonal of the 3/8″ nut. This was followed by drilling and tapping 1/4-28.
Tool Holder Arm and Head
Details 06 & 07, the Tool Holder Arm and Head
I started with Detail 07, the Tool Holder Head. The spindle housings should fit in the head without slop but still be easy to turn. To accomplish this they need to be a very close fit with good surface finished. It will be much easier to sand/lap the spindle housings to fit whatever size the bores turn out in this part than it would be to hone the bores without them becoming bell mouthed. So this piece of Ø1.5″ material needs to get squared up so we can get started.
Bike Light Electronics Package
To finish up I needed hardware and firmware.
The Electronics Package
Compared to the machining, the electronics are a piece of cake. I’m using an Atmel AVR ATTiny13 to control the brightness. +5V Power for the µController is provided by the BuckPuck, the BuckPuck brightness control pin is driven by a PWM signal generated by the µController, and the human interface is a single pushbutton.