Some Aluminum and Some More Copper

[Toolman]

First the aluminum. These are some sort of an endcap for a pressure vessel that has a shaft going through the center that operates something, I’m not sure. The less I know, the safer I am. This is 1 inch aluminum plate. The plates were too big for my biggest lathe so I had to mill them.

 

[Toolman]

Now the copper. Once again, these are a connector for multiple power cables bolting to something that uses a huge amount of electricity. Made from number 110 copper. This time went a lot easier than the first job I ran from this company. I used really sharp raked aluminum inserts. I took Len’s (The Boss) advice and ground my drill one flute .010 of longer than the other. The drill drilled about .015 oversize which was still within my tolerance limits. And the drill did not get hot or try to stick down in the hole. Thanks Len. it’s been a while since I did some 4 jaw work. It was kind of fun. The hardest part of the job was driving that giant pipe tap in the end of the part. Picture of a little fan sitting on the stool trying to cool the part down. This copper got really hot and it would grow in length and shove my tail stock back. When I would come back after the part was cool, the center was not contacting the part anymore. So I had to run the center back in every time the part cooled down. these parts were so heavy that I had to use a block of wood to hold them up and I use the carriage to roll them into the 4 jaw.

 

[Toolman]

 

[Toolman]

SLO-MO Melting copper. You can see the copper trying to melt right at the tip of the insert.

 

[Kachina26]

Totally fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

[Toolman]

Chuck swap. It takes 2 people.

 

[Perlmudder]

That cool stuff!

 

[zhandfull]

Looks expensive.

 

[BHC Vic]

Kind of bums me out I didn’t fall into machining

 

[mattyc]

Now the copper. Once again, these are a connector for multiple power cables bolting to something that uses a huge amount of electricity. Made from number 110 copper. This time went a lot easier than the first job I ran from this company. I used really sharp raked aluminum inserts. I took Len’s (The Boss) advice and ground my drill one flute .010 of longer than the other. The drill drilled about .015 oversize which was still within my tolerance limits. And the drill did not get hot or try to stick down in the hole. Thanks Len. it’s been a while since I did some 4 jaw work. It was kind of fun. The hardest part of the job was driving that giant pipe tap in the end of the part. Picture of a little fan sitting on the stool trying to cool the part down. This copper got really hot and it would grow in length and shove my tail stock back. When I would come back after the part was cool, the center was not contacting the part anymore. So I had to run the center back in every time the part cooled down. these parts were so heavy that I had to use a block of wood to hold them up and I use the carriage to roll them into the 4 jaw.





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Very cool!