Todays Project - What did you do today?

[PixMan]

Neil (expat) and I teamed up at my shop today to try and get done with the parts for his latest motorcycle project. Everything is 300 series stainless steel, some 304 and 303, mostly 316.

Neil started on lathe work, making a spacer bushing, then roughing out two castellated hex nuts. After my power tapping test I set to milling the hex on two axles he had made during our last session. Once the milling of the hex on one end was done, I drilled the cross holes for the split (cotter) pins. Then I milled the hex on the nut blanks he'd made, and gave them back to Neil for cutting off from the short bars and tapping through. What a joy to use a quality spiral point M12x1.25 tap under power on the lathe! In under power, twirled out by hand. The M10x1.25 wasn't as happy, as all I had was a four flute hand tap. I let Neil do that one.

He also made a centering "washer" for the headset on the bike, and it came out like jewelry. Here's a few pictures of the finished parts.