Sup guys and gals, its been a long time. I got into this hobby back in 07' but I was a kid and didn't have the funds to follow up on any of my designs. Around the time I did have funds for projects I had fallen pretty heavily into motor sports. I spent about four years building cars and practicing my mechanical skills. Responsibility came knocking though and I found myself putting my cars in storage and set out in search of a less...taxing hobby. Soon after I was scouring this forum and was very pleased with how far you all have brought this hobby.
I have been employed as a CNC machinist for four years now and decided i would start focusing more on that skill set, naturally, the best way I could think to do that was to start my first saber project using manual machines. Throughout this thread i will be posting up my build. Hope you enjoy -Pat
I decided to start with one of the more simple designs. I apologize for the picture quality (i was using my cell) and the kinder-gardener sketches. These were all quick doodles in between machine cycles at work. For this design I decided to use a 1-5/8" bar of 6061 aluminum we had lying around. As far as this material machines I think the stuff is the bee's knees.
Roughed the outer and inner diameter out using the lathe today. I am basing the more critical demensions an old TCSS hilt me and my brother got when I was a kid. Mainly outer diameter and inner diameter. I was afraid I was going to get a lot of tool chatter because how far it was sticking out from the face of the chuck. so I just cut it off after the outer diameter was finished. Thinking back it probably would have been easier if I would have roughed out the ID before parting it off. After most of the material was moved from the inside i flipped it over, skimmed it down, and tapered the back end for threads. there is a small thread relief in the back of the soon to be threads with a shoulder to help the two parts lock together. i am hoping that the gap is enough for me to stop the tool from crashing into the shoulder as i have never cut external threads manually. all in all i think it was a pretty productive lunch period though.
Bookmarks