The Cut Knurling Tool

It seems like I’m always making a tool to make a tool to make a tool… Then again that’s why we all started with the hobby isn’t it? I finally have some time to get back on the Quorn project and it looks like I’ll be needing to knurl a few pieces. Fortunately, or unfortunately as my wife sees it, the “Home Shop Machinist” magazine recently ran a 5-part article on a cut-type knurling tool. The article started in the March/April 2010 issue and ran through Nov/Dec 2010. In this article Michael Ward describes a knurling tool that creates perfect, full-depth knurls without being hard on the lathe. It looks fabulous and if it works even half as well as described, all the better! Who could pass up an opportunity like that?

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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 →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →