Over the last few weeks, while I have been waiting for the foundry to setup and make the first casting, I have been converting a lathe to CNC in order to fabricate some parts in house. This seemed sensible for a number of reasons among which is prototyping, which is expensive to have done, but possibly also for some small-volume production. The plumbing parts for the boiler are good candidates as they are expensive and in a few cases impossible to find. Additionally, the ones that I can purchase from my local supplier (and from what I have seen online) have no material certification - which means that they may or may not contain lead.
So yesterday, after close to a month of modifications and wrangling new software I started cutting my first part: the lever handle.
This is just a piece of hot-rolled steel that I had lying around. I will be using cold-finished 1018 steel or I may switch to 7075 aluminum if I can find it cheaply enough here in Canada.
The first couple of passes taking off the nasty foundry scale before preparing one end of the stock.
Roughing passes on the straight and conical parts of the handle.
Today's goal is to try to finish the profiling and threading.
So yesterday, after close to a month of modifications and wrangling new software I started cutting my first part: the lever handle.
The first couple of passes taking off the nasty foundry scale before preparing one end of the stock.
Roughing passes on the straight and conical parts of the handle.
Today's goal is to try to finish the profiling and threading.
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