2 "ground rod" questions (Thumper aka cable fault locator)

A mill is perfect for the work. You chuck up the abrasive disk of your choice, and step and repeat with the x&y feeds.

You can use a variety of abrasive tools for creating the finish. Among them are: a wooden dowel charged with grit, a felt pad glued to the end of a bit, and charged with grit, Rolock disks, Steel wool, and just plain carborundum paper in your choice of grit size (helps to have it on a resilient pad). Keep the surface flooded with coolant to prevent clogging your tool with swarf, or the pattern will get spotty.

I did a custom air cleaner frame to fit a big K&N element for my boss's sixty-(seven?) GTO. All 6061 finished to a nice luster, then engine turned on the top plate with 1-1/2" fine Rolock pads. 'looks FINE! Did the whole job with one clamp-up on the old Cincy #2. A good washing followed by a clear acrylic top coat keeps it looking new.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh
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=================================== Your plane looks very nice. My only problem would be that it is too pretty to use.

Actually a mill is ideal for jeweling, as you can precisely space the swirl marks. You should be able to get a mirror finish using only the tools you have. Try some of the ultra fine abrasive paper available at many automotive paint stores. Be sure to wrap it around a flat support such as a hss lathe tool blank. I have several 3/4 blanks just for this. An alternative is to use your mill table as a surface plate and put the ultra fine paper on this and lap the frame plates.

From what I could tell from the pictures, your current finish is more than adequate as a base for engine turning.

Brownell's sells a kit for bolt jeweling that should be just the right size for your plane frames.

see

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?p=8870&title=DAMASCENING+TOOL Note that you can do about the same thing with a short pencil with eraser in a drill chuck and a little fine valve grinding compound. Light dress the eraser every few spots by lowering it on a piece of medium grit abrasive paper. Another option is a wood dowel of the desired size.

More than likely you will want to apply an urethane or epoxy clear coat to protect the finish.

If you want to simulate actual "engine turning" where the metal is "machined" you may be able to do rosettes by grinding a chisel shape on a hss rod and "nicking" the end with the desired spacing.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ............................... On Theory: Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher. Aphorisms "Notebook J," aph. 77 (written 1765-99; tr. by R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

============= Two other thoughts.

You can try "frosting" which is decorative hand scraping. Basically scraping as on machine ways, but with a decorative pattern.

see:

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There is also process I have seen done where a hard metal tool is used to "iron" a grain type pattern into softer metal. This looked to me like lathe tool bit stuck in a large diameter wood dowel rod [1-1/2 inches?] about 30 inches long so the operator could put their full weight on it. The operator could get very different effects by pulling the tool, straight, wiggling it and slightly rocking it. He also had several tools, so most likely there are different patterns to the tool. I don't know how difficult this is, and it may require 20 years of practice to master.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ............................... On Theory: Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher. Aphorisms "Notebook J," aph. 77 (written 1765-99; tr. by R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

============= Yet another thought -- try fine hammer peening the brass frame pieces. A patina treatment and polish to bring this out with a clear urathane/epoxy sealer should look very nice.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ............................... On Theory: Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher. Aphorisms "Notebook J," aph. 77 (written 1765-99; tr. by R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

ok now I know how to do it. now the question is will people accept it? with infill's I don't have a large amount of leeway it what most people will accept. myself a simple abrasive brush left a nice finish. but others have said that I need to make the scratches straight only. that's easy to do. I will play around with my mill and see what I get. I will have to offer several finishes I think. the wood I sand to 1200 grit then buff it with Tripoli ad it looks great. metal working is so different it is hard for me to work the way most machinists do. I have to work around my limitations. like cutting the dovetails for the sole and sides. I have the cad files I print out a template use that and layout fluid to mark the dovetails. well the sides and soles never match perfectly even with me cutting right on the line. the sides are usually too small. so now I cut the sole then hog off the bulk on the side and then clamp them together and mark the sides. and as I cut them I can test the fit. now a question to get a nice buffed finish how fine do I have to sand to before I can use a buffing wheel and compound?

Reply to
Steve knight

I know this sounds like a trivial answer, but it's not. You sand until all the scratches are no more than about twice the size of the next grit. What that size is depends upon your next grit's size.

Buffing compounds are available in a number of grades from VERY agressive to "impalpable" fineness (jeweler's rouge being about the finest practical grit -- washed rouge being the finest of that).

I usually go through about four grades after 1200 grit pre-finishing.

The real secret to graduated polishing is to make sure that ALL scratches and/or pits from the last coarser grade are gone before notching up to the next mesh size. I.E.... when you switch from 320 to 600, make certain you get ALL of the 320 marks off the work before going to 1200 grit.

1200 won't economically remove 320 marks. Etc, etc, et cetera...

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

that means I will have to hand sand past 600 since thats the finest belt that is practial.

Reply to
Steve knight

So I've heard 8-)

I use bog-standard abrasives and follow the golden rule of metal finishing - Don't move to the finer grit until you've got _all_ the scratches out. The final steps though are with "Garryflex" blocks. These are a series of colour-coded soft rubber blocks with varying grades of embedded abrasive grit. Handy for steel too, but they're absolutely essential for hand-finishing brass, copper or aluminium.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

There are many different methods that can apply a multitude of finishes to metal parts. One approach would be to buy the stock prefinished.

Many metal surfaces with with "scratches" that are all straight and in one direction, undergo a process referred to as graining. A graining machine that I operated in a manufacturing facility performed this operation very well for many differently sized, flat parts that were machined from various metals. The graining machine was a huge sanding belt (abrasive side facing toward table) that was running above a sliding table. The table travel was perpendicular to the belt travel. The operator would place the workpiece on the table and use a padded paddle-of-sorts to press on the back (top, smooth side) of the belt to get the abrasive to contact the workpiece, making a motion similar to ironing a shirt sleeve. For workpieces wider than the belt, the table would be moved by the operator while the graining was taking place, and the grain direction was always straight. The operator needs to approach the edges of the workpiece very carefully to avoid rounding the edges. As the abrasive dulls, the appearance changes slightly.

When I use small wood planes, I generally end up using it single-handed for the finishing strokes. That means I hold it by the sides. A slick surface (buffed or highly polished) would be troublesome to me.

Other than graining like the method and machine mentioned, a wire brush wheel or abrasive flap wheel (not disk) could also produce straight lines, if used in a manner similar to a surface grinder (stationary location of wheel arbor), or a radial saw (stationary workpiece). You would need to utilize a sliding/gliding table to grain workpieces wider than the wheels. This wouldn't need to be some heavy, accurate, high precision slide.

Other finishes could be accomplished by grit blasting or chemical etching.

WB metalworking projects

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Reply to
Wild Bill

I wish but since I have to peen the sides together I have to grind them flat.

I agree but most people want that shine. so I think I will have a choice of finishes. here are some pics of what I came up with so far the last page is a full buff out

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Reply to
Steve knight

I can't do much hand sanding it hurts my hands. but I buffed out the little plane and it turned out really well. one trick I have found to make sure you get all of the last grit's scratches is to sand in a different direction then it is really easy to tell.

Reply to
Steve knight

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