Sunday, July 27, 2014

5-C Collet Cloture - Part 2 - The Draw Bar

See part 1

The purpose of the collet draw bar (or in normal cases, draw tube) is to thread onto the collet tightening it onto the lathe spindle and thus securing the stock to be machined.  On a normal sized lathe, the draw tube/ bar thing would be a hollow cylinder with a 1.238" - 20 ID thread on on end, and some sort of locking mechanism.  Examples of locking mechanisms include lever or pneumatically actuated ones, simple hand wheels (see picture) or more fancy gear driven hand wheels that are closer to the collet circumventing the need for a long tube.

This picture shows an example of what a normal 5C lathe spindle configuration might look like:
normal lathe spindle 5-C draw tube configuration

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Hard Cider #4: World Cup Victory Cider

To commemorate Germany's victory over Argentina in the World Cup Finals, I decided it was time to make some more cider.
(Ok I lied about the World Cup being inspiration. Chat at work was the real inspiration.)
Apple Juice
It's Cider Time!
I decided to pull out the old Safale US-05 I had in my fridge. Despite it being a year old, I think it'll still do the trick. The starter I made from it appeared active before I pitched it, so I'm hoping for the best.