Cadflat Tube Bender Project.

[Oddbod]

Thanks to River Patrol and Faux40 for your offerings.

I have since discovered that Option 2 is probably not the best idea as it may create a weak point in my shaft, so while it sounded promising it goes to the bottom of the list for now.

It is looking like I will be attempting a combination of Option 1 & 3.

I am leaning toward trying the square drive insert idea.
By making a square plate of the same thickness as my turntable approx 2" x 2", I can hold this in my lathe and machine in bevels for welding and machine off weld excess to obtain flat mating surfaces.

I can pretty much make this small plate a perfect square shape without too much trouble.
It will require much more effort creating a square hole in my turntable, but I guess I am up for it as long as I can be convinced it is an OK idea as a 2nd choice lets say.

I enjoy watching YouTube videos posted by guys in 3rd world countries doing stuff with very little and I remain amazed with some of the ideas and how they improvise with limited resources.
Sadly in some instances, we have not only become a throw away society, but one which is heavily reliant on the mail order and catatogue systems of dealing with problems.

Not that it is a bad things, but it seems to impede the idea of thinking outside the box so to speak...

So, I will seek out a scrap piece of 16mm (5/8") plate and get started in the next couple of days.
Tomorrow I get my 2nd Covid jab and going by my 1st jab, it will knock me for a couple of days.
Nothing serious with my last jab, but I was right off my game for about 4 days, but not immediately after the event.
Who knows with this stuff.

Probably the perfect solution for a scrouger like me, would have been to find a larger enough truck axle that still had a flange formed in it and I could have set a turntable plate with bolts or wheel studs.
I am in too far in another direction now and I am not sure my luck would hold out finding one locally, but still a good idea.

Anyway, fingers crossed both for the jab and also for this being my possible solution.

Stay tuned.

[Oddbod]

Like always, I am a little late, but do have some progress to share.

I've progressed in the direction of my square drive option and have spent most of my time not feeling so good after my 2nd Covid shot, but needed a distraction to take my mind off my woes.

So, I have continued by preparing the center square hole in my turnatable plate.
I started by cutting a fairly large square chuck of metral out from the centre of the turntable plate.
The cut out size was determined by the fact that my dive was 55mm square and then I wanted to fabricate a fitted frame around it, made up of 16mm square pieces that I cut up out of some flat bar I had.

I felt this would be the easiest method to create an accurate square hole without the need for too much hand filing etc.
The result so far seems to speak for itself as it went togther quick and easy with not so much effort required apart from welding and some flapper disc grinder work.

The size of the cut out worked out well as it matched pretty well with the size of my 125mm cutting discs, so a cut from one side that made it part way thru, then a cut from the other side which took most of the metal out and then I used my jigsaw with a metal blade to clean out the corners and the large square piece was removed.

The accuracy of the disc cuts was not so critical as it gave me a little wiggle room to get my true centre and drop my frame in and tack weld it into position.

No special skills required, just proceeded with caution and remained patient.

[Esteban]

Excellent work. Your patience has proven very valuable.

Great following your fabrication.

[Oddbod]

Thanks Esteban, I finally got a chance to try out one of my recently fabricated gizmo's.
Both gizmo's have had a coat of paint since you last saw them...
I could have done this task another way, but I just took the opportunity to see how it would go.
It went well with no issues.

Just a bit of fun this time, but it will serve me well in the future as I have gotten up enough courage to make a new chuck face plate for another chuck I have acquired, but it does not have a face plate that will fit my lathe.
I will need to drill several hole in a flange arrangement so this will be perfect for the job.

The plate setup and pictured in the lathe is for the bender project and will sit below the turntable plate and be attached to the underside of my small square drive to prevent the turntable plate from dropping past the square drive.
I have added some flange holes as a means of locking the turnatable plate to it as it will rarely be removed if ever.

[Oddbod]

Next, the turntable plate will have 4 studs or dowells installed in it which I have made from some tensile bolts by turning the threads off.
The dowells will form the basis for all interchange devices that may be used to bend whatever tube I choose with whatever form or device I make or acquire from whatever source.

I just need an attachement point that can be universal and allows an easy way to attach any devices I make or acquire.
Each of my devices will be attached to a matching face plate that can be dropped over my dowells and be ready to go quite quickly, with not too much effort or fiddling around.

[Oddbod]

Sorry for the lack of progress once more while waiting for the mailman, however I scored a 3 jaw chuck for my lathe that appears to be in new condition if not new and never used.

Sadly, it did not come with a face plate to attach to my lathe, so I decided to take on a bit more than I could chew and see if I could use my limited skills to make an adapter that would allow me to use a face plate that I had here which does attach to my lathe and see if I can match it up to the new chuck.

The adapter required 1 face to have a machined impression in it, while on the other face it required a raised circular center piece to cup into the back of the new chuck.

Not being familiar with how to approach it I found a scrap piece of 8mm thick plate and cut a square piece which fitted nicely into the jaws of my 4 jaw chuck.

Long story short, I machine both faces to a nice neat fit and cut a hole in the center.
After finishing the 1st face I had to flip it to do the other side, that was when I realised that I would probably lose some accuracy.
Nevertheless, I finished the impressions, then cut off the corners and mated the face plate and chuck together with some new bolts and machined down the outer edge to match the diameter of the chuck etc.

I then set it up im my lathe and did a run out test.
Sadly, I was about 18 thou out.
From what I have learned that is not good.
I fooled arounded with it and could not improve it, so I fell back to my bush skills and made it worse, now over 25 thou.

I took a look on YouTube and found several methods of correcting this issue using more technical methods and will next attempt to apply one of these methods to reduce the run out.
For me anything under 10 thou would be a big improvement and with my lathe skills I think I'd be happy with that in a 3 jaw chuck, considering if I want precison I'd go with my 4 jaw chuck.

In hindsight, I should have only machined the face that mated with the face plate and installed to the face plate and then installed this unit onto my lathe and proceeded to complete the 2nd face.
I feel sure that would have helped me greatly to minimise run out.

All the same I've learned something and have gotten a new 3 jaw chuck that attaches to my lathe and will eventually be accurate...

photo loading problems, so unable to offer you all that I wanted to post...

[Oddbod]

This chuck run out has been on my mind and since receiving comment from a friend, I have been keen to follow up and have another go at improving it.

Well the car is in for repairs so no wheels right now, my medical stuff was not as painful or agressive as I had anticpated and I'm broke after my latest property purchase so I decided improving my chuck run out was going to be a nice distraction.

Firstly, as mentioned previously, I tried rotating the fit of the adapter to the next set of holes, it was worse.
I also changed my test piece that was used with the dial gauge.
A little improvement but still no numbers that were worth a sod.

Influenced by my friend, I decided to keep the face plate and the adapter, but remove the chuck and try to face the chuck side of the adapter, even just with sand paper or whatever.
Sounded reasonable, so, I did this last night and also introduced a better quality test piece being a large thread tap with a suface I felt would be more reliable as far as round goes.

With respect to re-machining the existing face plate to suit the new chuck, I was tempted, but I do have another external 4 jaw chuck, or at least a 4 jaw chuck that is setup opposite to the regular 4 jaw I generally have been using and I figured I'd like to be able to bolt that on if required since I am becoming a little more ambitious these days.

Anyway back to discussing the plan of attack, so I did roughly what he suggested, plus with the improved test shaft for dialling and after completing those two tasks, I now have a run out of just 6 thou.

That to me that is a huge improvement for little work and I think I will count myself lucky and call it good.
I think with my naivity, I was pretty lucky to get away with it and ducked a bullet this time round.
I have learned several lessons during this exercise that hopefully will improve my approach to future tasks...

So now, I sit and wait for the mailman who still has not delivered my end cutters for my keyway cutting.

[Oddbod]

I see the last Post on here before my reply now was Post number 654 and it reminded me of a skit that I saw on YouTube that was funny, so I thought I'd just post the link on here for any body who enjoys a good laugh.
I hope I am not breaking any rules, but once in a while it can be a nice distraction from the seriousness of our projects and vehicle indugence.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxe4WWGnPuc

[Oddbod]

OK, while still waiting for the mail man, I did a practice keyway cut on a shaft.

My persoanl feedback is that my lathe chuck speed is not fast enough, as would be desired by the purists, but it does cut, I just got to take it easy.

[Oddbod]

I'm still waiting for the mail man.
In the meantime, I scored this vertical adjustable device for my lathe which should help me a lot when doing milling stuff.