Pete - It worked.... Sorta - Home Made Tap
I broke a drive coupler on my littlest machine the yesterday day. It was a
pretty simple piece of plastic. Basically a split clamp threaded on one end to go on the drive screw, and slip fit on the other end to go on the motor. I hated the idea of waiting for one to come in, but I didn't have an acme tap the right size to make one. I used your suggestion to try the old slot cut bolt method with a piece of the acme rod I had left over from retrofitting the machine. It didn't work very well. So I tried something else. I ground four flats on the rod so that it look more like a square thread file than a piece of threaded rod. That worked. I twisted the heck out of it, but I made a replacement split clamp coupler out of a piece of aluminum that way. It took a lot of back and forth twisting, but it worked, and it's a very nice fit on the drive rod. I bet it would work great in acetal plastic for making drive nuts. |
Pete - It worked.... Sorta - Home Made Tap
Bob La Londe wrote: I broke a drive coupler on my littlest machine the yesterday day. It was a pretty simple piece of plastic. Basically a split clamp threaded on one end to go on the drive screw, and slip fit on the other end to go on the motor. I hated the idea of waiting for one to come in, but I didn't have an acme tap the right size to make one. I used your suggestion to try the old slot cut bolt method with a piece of the acme rod I had left over from retrofitting the machine. It didn't work very well. So I tried something else. I ground four flats on the rod so that it look more like a square thread file than a piece of threaded rod. That worked. I twisted the heck out of it, but I made a replacement split clamp coupler out of a piece of aluminum that way. It took a lot of back and forth twisting, but it worked, and it's a very nice fit on the drive rod. I bet it would work great in acetal plastic for making drive nuts. I actually milled my acme rod to give it a profile similar to a tap, a sharp cutting edge, with chip clearance ahead of it, and good support behind it. You also need to grind in some taper so you are starting out with a light cut and progressively cutting deeper. If you have a torch and Kasenit you could do a quick hardening and touch up the edges with a stone before use. I recall an issue of HSM had an article on making taps. When tapping softer plastics, freezing them before tapping helps, as does re-freezing and a second finish pass to clean up. |
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