One Saturday morning a stopped by a yard sale and found a rusty old 1" socket for sell. It was in a box where everything in the box was 50 cents. I thought it would be perfect for my Quick Change Tool Post. I got it home and took it out to the lathe and it fit the nut on my tool post perfectly as had the 1" wrench I had been using. I put a 3/8 to 1/2 socket drive adaptor and a 3/8 pull handle on it and started using it. It worked fine except I still had to remove it from the tool post and set it aside like the wrench. Then I got the idea to weld a peace of key stock to the top of the socket instead of using the pull handle. After digging a peace of 1/2" key stock out of the junk box I thought milling a slot in the top of the socket and using a 3/8" bolt to hold the key stock firmly in the slot would be much better. As I was placing the socket in the vice on my mill I thought it would be really slick to match the angle of the handle on the tool post. I went over and checked it and found it was 16 degrees. I put the socket in the vice making sure the 1/2" square hole would be perfectly aligned with the slot I was going to cut in it. I also angled the top of the socket at 16 degrees. I used a 1/2" carbide mill to cut the slot using a spindle speed of 300 RPM. I started milling the slot taking only 5 thousands of an inch cuts and feeding it slow. That socket was tough but taking it easy I was able to cut it just fine. When the slot just cut the top edge of the socket I thought the depth looked just about right. The key stock was almost a press fit in the slot, perfect! I used a transfer punch through the sockets square drive hole to mark the key stock for a 3/8-16 taped hole for the bolt that was going to hold the key stock firmly in the slot. I then put put the key stock in the vice and set it up to drill and tap the hole making sure it was set at 16 degrees too. The last operation was turning down and cutting a thread on the end of the key stock for a 1 1/2 ball with a 1/2-13 internal thread. Now I have a dedicated wrench for my Tool Post that I can leave sitting on it's nut.
