I'm looking for a good used pair of skates cheap, but now I have to go out and get them girls, so we are going to a store that has this kind of thing, I hope I can find some "Replacement" type wheels...?
Any way, what happened in the Dungeon so far......
Here I am tapping holes to be used to hold stuff on the thick plate that will hold the wheels and adjusters
This is the basic set up, the thick plate at the top on the bar slides up and down
The angle iron at the base will get a slot in it, and that will allow the steady to slide in and out away from the headstock.
Next I drilled a bunch of holes on my toy drill press.
It is really important to lay the holes out in a straight line and to space them right. Here I was using a 12 mm bolt, so a 12.5 mm hole was called for, I drilled small holes first, at a 13 mm interval and then the big holes.
Once all the holes were drilled, I needed to connect the dots
and this was done with my jigsaw, and a steel cutting blade, you HAVE to go slow, the slowest speed the saw can be set at, and be VERY careful about the blade moving up and down, no side to side movement, or you WILL break blades DAMHIKT!!
To start the cut, you have to hit it at an angle, then turn the saw to cut straight.
Slow and steady is the key
I cut the whole slot without breaking one blade, and the blade still has lots of life left in it. Lots of guys overlook their jigsaw for metal working, I don't, it works well.
Now the fun part... Bastard file, chalk, wire brush and sweat makes a smooth groove.
When you are doing this, the size of the large drill bit comes into play. I could see the sides of the holes, and they gave me a gauge to go by, once the side of the hole just disappeared, the slot was the right size. If you use a lot of small holes around the edge of the grove, this is much harder to do, that is keep a straight slot.
All nice and smooth now, as good as a CNC, nope, but good enough!
Cont.....