I decided to try my hand at making the square head bolts and the socket washers to hold the center plate to the top bolster I had been wanting to make some square bolts for a while and when I worked out how to make the socket washers even though they can not be seen in the finished model I had to give it a go.
The square bolt size is 1.2mm and 1/2" long with a 2mm square head. I did not have any 2mm square stock so I made up some from 2mm stock. I used the die filler to cut strips a little oversize then I used the mill to cut that to size. I have homemade step jaws for my vise step jaws. The brass strip holding the stock is 1/16" thick.
There is no way with a single point tool to cut the whole shank of the bolt at once the first cut was 3/16" and I threaded that section.
This was the first real use of the production slide for my lathe. The close handle is the compound feed which is set straight and the stop is set to just keep the tool from hitting the chuck jaws. The back handle is the crossfeed and the stop screw is set to cut to 1.2mm. You just have to bump the crossfeed in and take the cut. If you get gready or make the cut too fast snap there goes another bolt. It is annoying to start over but I have had chips larger that that flying off a lathe. Here is the second 3/16" cut.
And the final cut to make the 1/2" length.
Here is a bunch of unfinished bolts. The first bunch I cut off with a mini chop saw but that was the hard way as the heads were not cut to length.
I reset the compound stop so I could use the tool edge as a work stop and use the back cutoff tool.
Now switching to a collet the cutoff tool is set to cut off the tiny nub left and the other tool is set to chamfer the square head.
Now on to the socket washer. The real ones are a cast iron socket for hex nuts with two splines to keep them from spinning in a wood hole. I used a Bell System tool to smash splines on a 4mm brass rod.
Then this was drilled and cutoff.
I drilled a hole in a wood block to hold the socket washer to file off the nub and then tap the hole.
I will finish the top bolster tomorrow.
Cheers Dan