Making the Small Parts

[rake60]

I may have started a thread along this line in the past but I'm going to do it again.

What are the smallest parts you've ever made?
My build of the Poppin called for a few, such as the cam roller and it's shoulder bolt.

What was the smallest part you've made?

Rick

 

[kvom]

As a newbie I guess these are small but not very impressive:

 

[jack404]

The bloke who really got me into model making
asked me to make him and his friends some small pressure guages

80PSI but they had to fit inside the engine cabin of his tiny steam trains

i owe him for getting me into this but i would not make these again no matter what the price ( well i am open to stupid offers)

this was the toughest thing i have ever had to make i made 22 to get 10 tested and passed as accurate
and heaps of attempts at the spring .. musta made 40 or so to get the 8 he and his friends wanted

i kept 2 for myself for future now a link from tel showed me where i can buy the bloody things a bit bigger but they woulda done the job.. oh well live and learn..

cheers jack

 

[mklotz]

This is a functioning oil cup for the main bearings on my miniature metal lathe. The thread is 0-80 and it's drilled through to allow oil to flow to the bearing surfaces.

Oh, and it was made on a 12 x 36 lathe. (I save the Unimat for the little jobs. )

 

[rake60]

I knew this would prove to be impressive!

What else do we have?

Rick

 

[chuck foster]

these two items were made on a 9" south bend lathe.

first is a stainless steel valve for my small hit and miss engine, the head of the valve is .098" dia and the stem is .032" dia
(the bolt in the pic is a 0-80)

the next item is a brass 00-90 bolt, now i didn't cut the thread on my lathe but i did turn the hex bar stock to size.

as marv said (I save the Unimat for the little jobs. Smiley)

chuck

 

[tattoomike68]

Wow, any one of those parts would be lost in my messy shop. :big:

I have seen lots of small parts at shops i have worked at. like 80,000 parts filled a 5 gallon bucket half way.

Once I made a bushing .050" long .040" OD with about a .030" bore. Another time I made some tiny tapered pins for an old small clock. Had to make 10 just to find 2 that did not end up in the chip pan. ;D

 

[ksouers]

I think I got chips bigger than those

I hope some day to do something like that.

Though I did turn down some coat hanger wire on my Sherline just to see if I could.

 

[rake60]

Believe it or don't, the 4-40 thread on the shoulder bolt for my Poppin engine build was
single point threaded. It didn't need to be. A die would do that quite easily on such a small diameter.

It was single point threaded to prove to myself that I could do that.
Not much drama to it. Two short threading cuts and it was done.
I wouldn't expect anyone to be impressed by that effort, but the feeling you get from
knowing you did it can never be replaced.

My finished engines could never hold a candle to many of those shown here.
That's OK, I still love to see the masterpiece works.
It's not a competition by any means.

It's about doing your very best, and being happy with your most recent achievement.
We want to see that achievement here!

Now having said all that....
Come on guys, show me some more small parts!

(I suppose that last line would get me beat up in most strip bars... :big

Rick

 

[jack404]

Dunno if you count these as small or made

i needed to rivet some very fine silver steel sheet together

made these from stainless 1/8th" head 3/32" shaft 5/8th" long rivets

ground the heads flat(ish) cut them to length
then counter bored them with a pair of 1.2mm drills i modded 1 to dril and one to flat drill or drop mill what ever you want to call it

sorry for the shocking pic
cheers

jack

 

[Brass_Machine]

Wow. I was going to go find my smallest piece and post a picture of it... but now it would look very huge next to this stuff.


Eric

 

[Brass_Machine]

Jack,

Can you do a build thread on those pressure gauges? I would be interested in seeing how that was done.

Eric

 

[jack404]

ERIC

How about i do some drawings for them instead

they just about drove me nuts making them
they truly are a pain in the butt and a great way to go bald tearing your hair out

theres a guy tel put me onto who gets similar made by the 50 lot!!

wish i knew that a year and a half ago

but they are not complex

its a tube matched to a delrin C ( heat proof delrin)elliptical ball bearing with a spring and pivot
the spring is the hardest to get right and is tungsten alloy

the pivot leg (brass) sits in the centre of the spring and when the pressure pushed the ball bearing up the tube it pushes the pivot leg up too and moves the scale arm

once it gets past a certain point the shaft has a cone shape to allow the pressure out past the ball bearing and out the back of the guage ( the requirement was for a pressure release incorporated into the guage at 85 PSI and this was the simplest way i could figure it)

i got wedderburn scales to make the spring for me in the end and i had them make a 6" coil of it and i just cut it to length, and tested it and adjusted the length to match, i have a few inches left if you want some

but again as for making them theres about 10-30 hours work in each one from scratch nothing hard just awful fiddly and easy to bend, cut short, get glue in the wrong place etc

E & J winter sell em for 1/10th what i would charge i dunno how chinese folks must live on air

but yeah will dig up the drawings and make them work for uploading

i'll get a couple of machines out and maybe then if i feel i've been very bad i'll make one but only if i feel i've been very bad and need punishing



jack

 

[Brass_Machine]

ERIC

How about i do some drawings for them instead

That would be great. I would like to tackle that 'just because'. I look forward to it.

Eric

 

[Cedge]

3/16th OD wick oilers with friction fit caps were the smallest, but this one is still my favorite small piece.

Steve

 

[Brass_Machine]

3/16th OD wick oilers with friction fit caps were the smallest, but this one is still my favorite small piece.

Steve

Yeah Steve, that is a nice piece!

Eric

 

[dsquire]

Hi All :bow:

All of these parts are incredible in their own right and certainly much smaller than any that I have made yet. (never say never.)

I heard Marv and Chuck say that they saved the unimat for the small pieces. I was just curious if they are going to show us some pictures of them?

I just had to say that.

Cheers

Don

 

[Stan]

As the previous posts show, everybody's idea of 'small' is different. As my eyesight declines, my small keeps getting bigger. This part required all of my attention just to do it in aluminum. It is a replacement nut for the stem on my indicator. The outside was simple. The inside had to have a ball shaped top with a 5/16" x 32 TPI thread single pointed right up to the curve of the ball.

On a previous post on hand grinding tools, I showed the threading bit ground out of a 1/4" lathe bit.

 

[mklotz]

All of these parts are incredible in their own right and certainly much smaller than any that I have made yet. (never say never.)

I heard Marv and Chuck say that they saved the unimat for the small pieces. I was just curious if they are going to show us some pictures of them?

I just had to say that.

Cheers

Don

Don,

The PMR model of a treadle-operated wood lathe calls for making a spur drive center from a 6/0 taper pin. Carving that shape into the end of a piece of stock 0.080" in diameter suggested that making a test piece first to validate the procedure might be a very good idea.

The picture below shows that test piece. It was done on the Unimat strictly by coordinate milling - I never looked at the part while making the cuts. [Although I must confess that my Unimat is heavily customized with dial indicators on all three axes.]

The final part was made by fitting the taper pin into a matching tapered hole made in a piece of 3/16" square brass and duplicating the procedure worked out with the trial piece. It worked a proper treat. The lathe is out on loan right now so I can't get a picture of the pin but I'll try to get one when it returns.

 

[mklotz]

No discussion of tiny parts would be complete without mentioning a modelmaker in Kansas City who goes by the screen name of rivett608 over on the PM board. Here's just a random sample of his work...

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=140639

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=110684

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=97054

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=143518

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=144824

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=112534

If you frequent the PM board, keep an eye out for his posts. They're always worth reading.