This week I was getting back into the swing of things with the tube. I realized on Monday that I had left the tube majorly out of alignment.
I also realized that the soft jaws I had made for the tube were too soft. They had squished under the uneven pressure of the chuck’s jaws’ clamping force. so I made new low profile versions of the soft jaws.
the new low profile jaws are a lot simpler, just consisting of a slightly rounded plate. I used the stock for the end caps in the vise as an anvil to shape the jaws to be the right diameter.
then I spent another entire day aligning the tube.
after that I re-set the DRO using the dial indicator. then I started to thin out the flange at the end of the tube from 3/4 in to half an inch. I made sure to leave material for the filet.
I really didn’t want to have to take the time to grind a form tool to turn the filet, and we don’t have a holder for button inserts or button inserts, so I used a life hack. I put an 1/8 in ball endmill in a number 8 collet, then I put that collet in the large boring bar holder. I then used this as a form tool to turn the filet on the flange.
although this worked rather well, I had to dramatically reduce the RPM and reverse the spindle. I also had to manually feed, avoiding turning the entire diameter of the endmill at once to prevent chatter and possible misalignment.
during the week I worked with Adam to figure out the CNC for the end caps. we decided to not add the perpetrator holes yet to ensure that all the cables work before permanently deciding on the diameter of each hole. I also helped adam switch out the vise in the CNC mill to the larger one one the manual mill. I realized that we didn’t have to fully indicate it in because the circular end cap is the only part machined and all of the features that aren’t fully circularly symmetrical are machined in the same setup.
