I have been pretty busy building firewood totes and splitting wood, but with the temps in the 80’s, it gives me a good excuse to play in the basement. I started on my blast baffle the other day. I made a few cuts and drilled the center hole pilot. It seemed like regular mild steel. I grabbed one of my “pretty nice, not cheap” drill bits and it didn’t even try to cut it. It just squealed. Have to stick to the good hss lathe tooling. I have some nicer tooling that I inherited from my uncle. He was a machinist at a local paper mill. He built his own bench grinder and drill press, and I have both of them. I will try to get pictures as I go.
We spent the evening cleaning up part of the basement, moving some things and making more room so we could move the lathe. The headstock was close to a wall, so it had to be moved to the right to fit barreled actions. I made riser feet for it too. It was too low and I had to stoop a bit to run it, which made me very sore. I used hockey pucks and carriage bolts. I recessed the bottom of the pucks for the head of the bolt so it wouldn’t touch the floor. They raise it about 3.5” after leveling, which is about perfect. The feet prevent vibration transfer to the floor. It was pretty bad with the feet directly on the concrete. I worked on the blast baffle a little. I had to set up the steady rest, but the stainless likes to gall, so I will be adding bearings to prevent that. I prefer a roller rest for most things anyway and it’s something that needs to be done anyway. I’m also making a new boring bar that will reach through the suppressor tube.
The new boring bar was a bust, literally. I had a piece of steel laying in the shop that would work, so I chucked it up in the lathe and broke my parting blade. I don’t know what that stuff was or where it came from, but it does not like to be cut. Even carbide didn’t work on it. I tossed it in the scrap bin and ordered a couple of bars of the interweb. They should be here tonight and I can see if they do a good job. I did get the blast baffle done. The 304 cut like butter compared to that hard stuff. No complaints about it from me.
I tried out the boring bar tonight. Fiddled with it for a while on the part of the tube I had to trim off anyway. I got it dialed in, cut the tube off, and got right to work. The bar worked beautifully. I have not used insert tooling before. Only hss and brazed carbide. I prefer hss over brazed carbide for most stuff. This insert tooling is pretty slick. Each insert has 3 corners and 2 sides, so you get 6 corners to wear out on each one. I don’t know how long it will take to wear one out, but I guess I’m going to find out eventually. The tube is bored out to size and the blast baffle is a nice fit. A little tough to get back out, but once it goes together it will probably stay together. I have to thread the ends of the tube and make caps/baffles. It should move along quickly now, as long as I have the time to work on it. I still have to thread the barrel, but that won’t take long. It takes longer to get it running true than it does to cut the threads.
I have been a bit busy lately. I have fiddled with the suppressor here and there. I spent the last 2 nights making the rest of the baffles. All I need is the end caps and it is done. I do have to clip the baffles, but that doesn’t take very long. The 4 “deep dish” baffles on the right are aluminum. The flat and 2 cones on the left are 304 stainless. The 2 spacers and tube are aluminum. The tube is still full diameter, so it will lose some weight when I turn the outside down to get to my final thickness. I ordered a sig taper hub adapter for when I buy a commercial can. It is supposed to be 1/2”x28, but I don’t know what their thread tolerance is. I can hit a thread diameter with wires, but I will wait until the adapter gets here to thread the barrel, just to make 100% sure it fits right. This puppy sure looks good with the internals in it. I hope it works well and holds up to the 22-250.
I don’t know why so many people hate on 304 stainless. I didn’t have any trouble with it. I can’t be completely certain that it is 304, but it says 304 on the end and that is the only stainless that the shop deals with unless you special order it.
Because they rush and overheat the metal...or start with a less than razor sharp bit/tool I work with SS all the time, I kinda have a love/hate relationship with it. I just installed a new outdoor SS control panel a few weeks back...had to drill some 1" holes in the bottom for conduit connections, and I had no issues. I had to leave early and left a couple newer guys to continue the work, as the whole job was time sensitive. When I came back the next day, they were bellyaching about how I can work with junk tools...they had to drill a couple more holes and burnt up what WAS a perfectly good $60 step bit I know exactly how they did it, high speed, and high pressure...
I had to make some holes bigger in some SS control panels a few years ago. I didn't want to drill them because of shavings getting into the electronics so I tried using a knockout punch. I've used this kit many times before and it cuts mild steel like butter, but this SS kicked it's butt. I ended up having to drill them...I built a shaving catcher out of a label roll cardboard core filled with grease.
Yup, I get it...always try to avoid drilling holes in the top of the panel (future leaks) but when I do I try to get a small box to put under the drill. We have the knockout punches too, they actually work pretty well (Greenlee kit) even in SS, but for just 1 or 2 holes I usually don't bother to go get it (its kept in another dept, which is down the road)
I've had to illuminate many about drilling RPMs. 'It's says it's high speed steel'. Trying to explain that hole saws need to operate at 150-300 rpm in metals completely baffles most users. 'But my drill spins this fast, faster is better?'
I put a treadmill motor and controller on my drill press so I could better manage the speed and reach lower rpm. Works great.
So do I. I have been tempted to do the same on my lathe, but thr problem with treadmill controllers is the lag when a load is applied. It takes a second for the power to ramp up and that might stall a lathe.
Younger me had no idea why drill presses had 5 different pulleys to choose from. Bottom line is always that heat kills tooling. This is in direct conflict with most user's instincts unfortunately.
I was just doing the ole belt/pulley shuffle on the drill press yesterday! Was going from the lowest speed, to the the highest, so had to swap belts too
So here's a $200 .308 unit that seems to have merit so long as a direct thread option is available. I'm not a fan of the Brake Style connections outside of AR15 platofrm, and I do not own one of those.
