Behold my prowess!

Or something like that.

I decided to work on that adapter I made for the lawn mower problem. First, after having looked back at part of the book I reground the left-cut bit to improve the angle and honed it. Got the piece fairly well centered* in the chuck(Gerry, it is getting easier to do), set the speed slow, adjusted the bit and started cutting. I've got part of a can of Do-Drill cutting oil(that can has lasted a good ten years) and used it to lube the steel.
Got a bit of chatter, which I believe means I need to adjust the angle of the bit a touch, but it cut right along. I took small cuts, and after a bit got this:
Doesn't show very well but the surface isn't real smooth. I did grind a round-nose finishing bit and went over it, which improved it quite a bit from the rough-cut bit. I could have used a file or paper to smooth it, but for this- as long as the section to hook into the drill is actually round and concentric- I'd rather have it a touch rough.

Second project: a week or so ago I managed to break the decapping pin in my 8mm die. And NOBODY in town has these. For this I got a piece of garage door spring about three inches long that was pretty straight and annealed**, chucked it with an inch sticking out and made this piece:The pin slides into the expander ball on the right, the head keeps it in place and the rod screws in to lock it all together. This steel is tough enough that it should work well for the purpose. I'm wondering if some music wire(have to anneal that to make sure it's as soft as possible) would work better; if this doesn't hold up, I'll get some and find out. Easy to get, hobby shops carry it in many sizes.

Last, made a small punch
That small tit on the end means I didn't have the bit on the center of the piece, but I'll strike it off with a file(Yes, Og, I should have done that while it was still in the lathe). As the piece got closer to finished diameter it started flexing away from the bit, so cleaned up the surface and took it down to final size with a fine file.

Going to take a while, but I'm learning how to use this thing. I need to get some proper bit holders for one thing, they'll make adjusting angles a lot easier. Just to try, I put one of the carbide bits on the belt sander and all it did was polish the surface(about like expected, but had to try); I'll have to get a proper grinding wheel for those.


*'Fairly well' means the dial indicator showed all four corners as close to identical as I could get. Square or thicker round stock is pretty easy to get centered; the piece for the pin wasn't perfectly straight so I got it as close as I could. It was the smallest stock I had that would fit into the chuck tightly.

**Left over from forging small blades and chisels. When you straighten the stuff out for that 'pretty straight' works well, and when it's going to go into the forge before any grinding or filing annealing isn't a big deal. Happily, this was from some stuff I'd taken some pains on that step.