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Next to the furnace, this is probably my favorite tool for working with
aluminum. (No, I don't have a lathe or mill. Yet.)
When I first looked at this aluminum file, I thought how could something this
rough looking possibly work?
However I was quite surprised when aluminum shavings just fell off with very
little effort!
Definitely recommended!
(Yes, I know the handle is a little too small for the file, but it hasn't
moved high enough on the priority list to get fixed yet.)
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I couldn't help myself.
Many parts of the lathe need to be very
flat so acquired a very, very flat rock from
Niigata Seiki (Japanese site).
It is a 300 x 450 x 100 mm
gabbro surface plate with
an overall flatness of 0.003 mm (Japanese standard JIS O class).
I actually scrounged around and came up with the granite-like slab below
(from a gravestone shop) first.
Turns out it wasn't as flat as I hoped.
It was free though, so no regrets.
I'll find something to do with it.
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2004/02/23. I got a couple of things from a
company in Japan:
a straight edge, a dial indicator, and a stand.
I have started using the straight edge as a reference for scraping the
edges of the ways on my lathe.
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2004/04/04. After reading a bit about "silver soldering", I decided to get
some silver solder and try out some experiments.
The stuff is pretty expensive though.
This package was 1500 yen (about $14).
As of 2004/04/11 I still haven't tried it out yet, but I'll get there soon.
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2004/04/07. I suppose the next step after brazing copper and silver soldering
is some kind of real welding.
In preparation I found this unit on Yahoo auctions (Japan).
It is a little arc welder that runs on 100V 15amps so I guess it is probably
on the "wimpy" side.
Not only that, but it is not of the highest quality construction...
But considering my complete lack of space and limited scale projects I think
it should be worthwhile to try out.
2004/04/11. I had to plug it in and try it out.
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