On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 07:24:03 GMT, Gunner
wrote:

I am making a set of fingers for my 24" DiAcro fingerbrake, out of
1.25" hotrolled steel plates, and decided to square the roughly
bandsawed blocks, on the shaper. Being hot rolled..there is a thick
scale skin and its rough on endmills and fly cutters. Plus the blocks
may have been flame cut from a larger plate at the mill..the edges
seem to have a faint flame cut edge..so there is a HAZ that needs to
be gotten through. Ive got face mills..but the big Gorton has no power
feed..and I hate face milling by hand on stuff thats gonna need a
heavy cut

Id tried a slab mill on my Clausing 8540..but for some reason..the
table is rocking and I cant see exactly where..sigh..another Roundtuit
to address....

With the vise..the 8" shaper is NOT capable of squaring a 6" block, so
I pulled the support rail out from under the table and lowered the
table down, using a thinner support rail to give me the smidge of room
I needed.

I set the stroke, travel etc..and let it run a couple cycles to check
out everything. All a-ok

So I set the feed per stroke on the dovetailed gizmo on the end of the
crank and let her run.

It was making a nice cut..and suddenly the link that goes between the
feed dog mechanism on the feed worm and the dovetailed gizmo bent
slightly and the rachet mechanism dropped below 2 Oclock..the link not
being long enough.Before I could shut it off..it busted out one side
of the dovetailed gizmo on the end of the crank. PLINK!!!

The part apparently is cast iron. So I have two options...drill and
tap, or drill and dowel pin and then braze, or make a new dovetailed
gizmo from scratch. I do have the proper sized dovetail cutter (and if
I were any good..Id use the shaper itself to cut the
dovetail....shrug)

What should I do? Try to pin and weld the old part, or make a new one?
Buying one from Logan..is financially out of the question for me at
this time.

Should I hunt around for a proper piece of cast iron, or should I use
nitrated silly putty for the new part? Im fresh out of unobtainium
and the last time I did lanthanated titanium..the lathe caught fire.

Second time in a year where I wished I had a bigger shaper..damnit

There is a pretty nice Gemco 16" I might be able to get...hydraulic I
think..but then..Id have to move the Rolls Royce out of the shop to
make room.

Sigh..what to do..what to do.....

G

Gunner, who is negotiating for a Albine miller



"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

Want to borrow mine? Doesn't look too hard to make except the tapered
pin hole and the inside radius. I'm not using mine anyhow and won't
sell it without fixing the ratchet end that is my problem.

Looks like you would need an extended arm to prevent that from
happening again with the table all the way down. I take it that you
sold that cool bigger shaper.

Maybe you could make me the pin, and holder for the ratchet housing
that my cluts friend lost for me. They are small parts that I don't
have a sample to copy. Don't let other people clean your shop for you
and not check the pile for parts that you don't know are missing.

I'd buy new hardened ones, but I don't think Scott has them. Would my
dove tail gizmo fit your machine without modifying?