Part 2 - Building the cross slide

Sunday, 28 January 2007

Well, If you are here, you are probably thinking that Joe must be done with the bed assembly finally. Well, no, I am not. As a matter of fact, I am still scraping on the beast, but I had to take a break from it. I can only scrape so long and I start losing grey matter or something. It just drives me nuts. So I thought I might as well do something else as far as the lathe goes.

I am in the process of making the pattern for the cross slide. Now I have tried to make this pattern before. The first time failed because I mis-measured and the pattern was off. So much so that it was not usable. The second attempt just about caused me to soil my pants when I was cutting a dado with two pieces laminated together. During the cut the piece kind of exploded! Let's just say I was not expecting that. I jumped. The third attempt was with my CNC router, and as the router was not really finished, I broke the router clamp and ruined the pattern. This time, though, I am taking it slow, ripped some 5/8" stock from a 2x4 and so far so good. I am getting closer to having it finished but thought I would show a picture of it. That way if anyone out there is actually following my progress on this will see that I have been doing a little something here and there.

Here you see the start of my pattern. I used my table saw to cut the 2x4 to 5/8" thick. The problem was that my blade was not quite perpendicular to the table leaving a flaw on one side. Another problem I ran into was the channel that is cut for the cross feed screw did not go so well for me. I used a drill bit with a set screw collar to control the depth. But on the second or third hole I drilled the collar slipped and I got a bit deeper than I planned. I adjusted the collar to fix it, but the damage had been done. Well, no matter if this pattern does not turn out, there are a couple of things I want to try. Next I used my dremel and a burr to cut the wood to form a slot and some taper. When all was close, I really gave a coating of wood filler to fill my flaws at the bottom of the screw tunnel and the top where the cross slide ways get screwed down. What you see here is a bit rough, but some sanding and a little forming should bring it back to shape.

Here is a side view of the pattern so far. As you can tell, I will not be winning any awards for my wood working skills. Here you will notice that the clamp pads are not yet attached and the relief between the wear pads has not yet been cut. I am hoping that I can find some time to work on it tonight. I also have an idea for creating the draft on the out side edges for the screw tunnel / cross slide ways support. If it works I will show it the next update. If you are building a Gingery project, I wish you the best of luck and encourage you to share with the rest of us. If you don't have a place to share, let me know, I can provide a little space to someone who wants to post their work for others to see. In the mean time HAPPY CASTING!!! Oh, almost forgot ... happy scraping too! ;-)

Monday, 29 January 2007

I managed to find a little more time to work on the pattern. So I thought I would put a couple more images of the progress. I imagine that the more I add to this page, I will probably remove some of this stuff to conserve space. But for now, what the heck. If you compare this image to the one above, you will see that the bearing surface for the ways looks much better. I wanted to make sure that the surface that carries the ways was as parallel to the pieces below it as I could. I used two blocks of wood that were of the same depth and placed them on top of some sand paper on my table saw. I used these blocks to hold the side pieces to prevent sanding any taper into the ways surface. Well, It seemed to work pretty good. Now I turned my attention to something else. I wanted to sand draft into the pattern before I attached the clamp pad pieces to it. I used my protractor to mark a piece of heavy card stock to make a gauge that was 93 degrees. I used this card stock to set the angle on my little belt / disk sander.

In this side shot you can see the draft as it was sanded into the pattern. I done the same thing for the clamp pads. There is still plenty more work to do before this pattern is finished, like fillets and rounding the sharp corners and some cosmetic filling. I am grateful to whoever created Bondo and wood fillers. With a coat of paint all my sins are covered. One thing I do want to pass along is how I done the taper on the outsides of the screw tunnel. I am going to attempt to explain it, but if it ends up being as clear as mud to you, let me know and I will post a picture of the device. I started with a piece of sheet metal a couple inches square and found the straightest side I could. We will call this the bottom. I took a permanent black marker and colored the whole bottom section for about 3/4 of an inch. Then I took my protractor and set it for 93 degrees. I scribed a mark about 1/2 inch from the left edge of the sheet metal. The mark angled up to the right. Next I measured 3/8 of an inch from the bottom and scribed a line all the way across the metal. The purpose of the black marker was to help the marks stand out. Next I took some snips and cut along the mark made with the protractor to about 1/4 inch above the horizontal line. Then I clamped the sheet metal in my vice and bent the sheet metal on the right of my vertical cut on the line scribed earlier. I tried to make this bend as close to 90 degrees as practical or as I could eye it. This left me with an angled tab sticking down to the left. Now my tool was complete. To get the taper on the side of the screw tunnel, I took the putty knife and gave a coat of wood filler on the side of the screw tunnel. I used the sheet metal tool to scrape off the putty leaving me with tapered side of 93 degrees. So while you are looking at the images here, you may notice some purple looking color, that was from the sheet metal where I colored it with marker to lay it out.

I am hoping that I can find a little time tomorrow to work on it some more. I guess when I am done with the pattern, I will turn my attention back to the bed casting and scrape until I am sick of scraping again. Don't get me wrong, scraping isn't all that hard to do, or at least it does not seem to be, but it does get boring rather quickly. Well till next time, Happy Casting!

Tuesday, 30 January 2007

Well, I think I am about done with this pattern. I still need to give it another coat or two of primer and a few clear coats with some sanding in between. The screw tunnel isn't as nice as I would like for it to be, but as long as it is functional I suppose it will be just fine.

Here is a side view. You can see the fillets on the wear pads and clamp pads.

Finally here is a shot of the front. My camera didn't focus on the pattern though. Looks like it was more interested in the knife or the grain of the table. Oh well. If you look close, you can see the fillets I put along the screw tunnel. I will most likely finish this pattern up this week. I guess it is back to scraping now. We are expecting some bad weather the next couple of days, so I guess I should have some time to work on it. Till next time. Good luck on your projects and happy casting!