Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[Drcemento]

Now were talking! I would have been much more patient had I known they weren't finished! I thought you were sitting on a pile of finished ones that hadn't been sent to anno yet!

[DocsMachine]

What? I may not be the world's greatest businessman, but if I have finished, ready-to-go product, I tend to try and get it sold.

This is the second, or possibly the third small batch of these I've run since around last Thanksgiving. Only one of which I got annoed. I really do need to sit down and crank out a good sized batch of these, but time is just so short these days.

Doc.

[Impactfour]

Hey doc, it's a bit off topic but any chance you have any of those pgp fast changers that's raw rather than annodized?

[DocsMachine]

No, sorry. I had them all annoed. I didn't think too many people would be trying to "color match" to their PGP.

Doc.

[Impactfour]

Hahaha completely fair, I'm definitely on a unique quest here. Thanks doc!

[DocsMachine]

Today's Major Accomplishment:

I received two of the five bearings I need.



Stand by for more exciting updates!

Doc.

[Drunkscriblerian]

Regarding Doc's Fastchangers vs. others on the market;

I happen to own both a TASO fast-changer (which Doc used as his model) and one that came from either Palmer's or PMI, so I tried screwing the Palmers/PMI changer into the TASO collar on my P-68SC and it fit perfectly. Now again, I don't know if the changer on my PGP was from Palmer's or PMI...I bought it in 1997 or thereabouts and cannot for the life of me remember who made it. I'm about 90 percent sure it came from Palmer's, but I don't know for certain. Does anyone know if the PMI version had a logo on it anywhere? Mine has no logo to speak of.

My test would indicate that there is in fact some cross-compatibility between fast-change designs, but I definitely wouldn't base a purchasing decision around this data point. More information is needed. Still, just thought I'd drop my data point into the conversation.

[DocsMachine]

And now, for the latest incredible installment of this amazing project!

I got two more bearings in!



I wish I had the time to, you know, actually do something with them... but hey, they're here, at least.

What about that fifth one? That's the third on the spindle- and I can't get a number off that 'til pull that apart. Which I ought to do this weekend, so I can order said bearing on Monday, I suppose.

I just need three more clones, another dozen minions, and for somebody to add nine or ten more hours to a day.

Or to huck it all and take up stamp collecting, but that's just crazy talk.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Once again, trying to save time by spending time. Or at least, that's the excuse I'm using today.

Figure I won't have much time to fool with this thing this coming week, but I could still try to use that time wisely, and get that last bearing on its way in. But that, of course, meant pulling the spindle back out, and then pulling it apart- pulling it out was easy, as I still had the bits 'n bobs from doing it the last time.



The tricky bit is, now I needed that spanner wrench I mentioned, and I expected it'd need to be fairly beefy, to overcome that staking on the nut. I didn't get pics of everything, as time was short, but simply put, I mocked up a profile in thin cardboard, transferred that to a chunk of some 1/4" steel plate, and bandsawed it out.



I had the plaz the center out, and then spent all too long with the belt grinder getting the thing smooth and fit to size. I marked and drilled for the pins, cut and faced a couple bits of 3/16" rod in the lathe, and TIGged 'em in place.



Now, the trick here was that I had no way to securely hold the spindle firmly enough to break the 'staking' on the nut. I tried grabbing it with the 3-jaw in the big lathe, but it just spun. I pondered the issue a bit, and came up with an alternate method. That method first needed a new key...



Which goes in the spindle nose like this.



That's the drive key for the L-00 chucks, and I'd been meaning to make one anyway. This will primarily be a collet machine, but I like the idea of having the option to use a chuck.

I got out the locking collar bits that came with the machine, and installed them for the first time. They're well made, and fit perfectly.



A couple of weeks back, I found an unfinished L-00 backing plate on eBay, when I was looking for some other parts. I have a 5" 3-jaw laying around, that I think will be perfect for this machine, so I picked it up.

I attached the plate to the spindle, and then bolted the spindle to my mill table. I used an aluminum plug with a taper machined into it, to help support the upper end of the spindle, and snugged it all up.



The nut did indeed take some force to overcome, but once "broken loose", it spun off the rest of the way with relative ease.



With that out of the way, I popped it off the backing plate, removed the retaining nut parts, and set it up in the press to remove the bearings.



Note how this has a spring-loaded center spacer, apparently to allow the bearings to move, ever so slightly, as the machine warms up in use. (And/or warms up more at the higher spindle speeds.) I don't know why it was missing six springs- if that's a factory thing or whoever rebuilt this thing before, for some reason left those out.



And there's the bare spindle.



Got the number off the rear bearing, and was surprised to find that it, too, was a "super precision". Rivett didn't fool around, it seems. Looks like another $150, for a little over $550 total just in spindle bearings. Good thing I'm rich, eh?

Interestingly enough, the rear one feels the worse of the three. I may wash these out with solvent and see how they feel while clean and with some thin oil.

Yeah, I probably could have lived with the only-somewhat-noisy ones for a while, but while I have this thing apart, I might as well go all the way, before I put it into service.

Doc.