It's Stuart Hammer time......

[PaulR]

Nice work on the lever - is that from solid or two pieces soldered together?

[Sanjay F]

Nice work on the lever - is that from solid or two pieces soldered together?

Thanks Paul, its from a single piece - I'm just getting the knack of making these type of pieces using the rotary table/chuck with a locking pin through the centre.

The machining work is now completed on the lever and just the hand fettling left to do tomorrow

[Sanjay F]

The internal lever is finished and the addition of a face mill and draw files to my armory has had a marked improvement on the finish - not perfect, but better. The price of the draw files was a bit eye watering but I have reserved them for that specific purpose as suggested. Also the use of chalk to keep the swarf from clogging up the files is working well.

The box of Cosmic White Chalk reminds me of being at school, although no one currently at school would know what a blackboard is or would have only seen one in a book or on a video! 

[PaulR]

Lovely bit of hand finishing 

[Rledoux313]

Looks great! What is the chalk trick? I am not familiar

[Sanjay F]

Looks great! What is the chalk trick? I am not familiar

Rubbing the chalk onto the file before filing prevents the file surface from clogging up with fine metal particles: here's a 20 sec YouTube short:

https://youtube.com/shorts/CRwiSALW90I?si=hQcyKqYo3iyB3L0m

[wagnmkr]

Looking good Sanjay!

Tom

[Sanjay F]

Thanks all!

Moving onto the valve rod which has 2 x fork ends; started on the 4 jaw, then over to the mill to cut to size and drill and tap the holes. Last thing to be done is to mill the slots .......... one for tomorrow

It currently looks like a mini barbell 

[Rledoux313]

Looks great! What is the chalk trick? I am not familiar

Rubbing the chalk onto the file before filing prevents the file surface from clogging up with fine metal particles: here's a 20 sec YouTube short:

https://youtube.com/shorts/CRwiSALW90I?si=hQcyKqYo3iyB3L0m

Thanks for the tip, I will try that

[Chipswitheverything]

The small bits coming on nicely.  I like the look of the very fine files, presumably they have handles fitted now? Rubbing them with soluble cutting oil also works quite well for stopping the pinning , and I clean the fine teeth with a scrap of brass sheet worked along them every so often.
If you are wanting an exact size and a good finish when turning a component, particularly steel, and the final fit needs a very tiny amount taken off, no more than about a thou remaining ( this won't work in metric ...!), then a very fine file, No 6 cut, well wetted with clean soluble oil, used on the turned shaft or component  in the lathe, running at a moderate speed, will produce a lovely finish and give a very controlled way of reducing that last tiny amount to be removed from the diameter. Taking a cut with a tool to remove that last minute amount can be a bit precarious, and the super fine file will help. The late Geo. H. Thomas used to use and advocate that method often to produce the superlative finish on his work. Dave

[Sanjay F]

No handles yet, actually none of my files have handles 

How do you mean using a scrap of brass sheet?l? How do I use that method to ‘clean’ the file?

[Michael S.]

Oor these brushes.

[Spinner21]

Hi Sanjay, just use the edge/corner of a piece of brass sheet pushed along file teeth to push out the bits of metal that get jammed in the file teeth which won't come out with brushing.
Andy.

[Sanjay F]

Hi Sanjay, just use the edge/corner of a piece of brass sheet pushed along file teeth to push out the bits of metal that get jammed in the file teeth which won't come out with brushing.
Andy.

Ah okay, got it, thanks ............ I still got lot's to learn 

[Sanjay F]

Couldn't work out whether to round the fork ends before or after milling the slots; shouldn't make much difference except more 'meat' to hold onto without milling the slots so made some filing buttons