Todays Project - What did you do today?

[Pete O]

Not as impressive as a set of air-cooled radial engine cylinders, but probably took me just as long. Just finished making one of the arbor support bushes for my mill; it had only the bare horizontal arbor when I bought it, there were a few of the spacing bushes in amongst the cutters that I bought the other week, but I'm having to make the two support bushes as well as another 9" worth of spacer bushes. And the left-hand threaded nut.

This bush is 82mm long (about 3 1/4"), I cut the internal keyway by racking on the lathe, must have taken at least 6 hours in total just to cut the darn keyway.

   

   

Taking .002" cuts toward the headstock, I got lots of shuddering (for want of a better term) and the finish in the base of the cut reflected this, looked like a corrugated track. For the last few passes, I tried turning the cutter around and taking the cuts in the opposite direction, i.e. by pulling the cutter out of the bore toward the tailstock. This resulted in a nice smooth cut.
The pic of the cutter unfortunately is focused on the background, but you get the idea.
   

The other support bush has to be identical to this one, but when that's done I'll make the spacer bushes one inch long each.