Joshua Dinerstein
02-19-2010, 1:39 AM
Following the in the footsteps of many here I have been working for oh... the last year on a vacuum chuck system. It has only taken that long because within weeks of buying my pump and parts my wife and I had a baby. Katie being my first I had NO CLUE!!! how much time and effort she would take. Worth it to say the least but other things had to take a back burner. In the last week I finally got around to trying again.
Following a picture and an explanation from Don Orr I made my own rotary adapter.
I got some Corian samples from a local store. These about 2"x2" and 1/2" thick. They were highly polished and had been written on. I didn't think glue would hold something that highly polished so I put my sanding wheel onto the lathe with 2 quick swipes, one on each side, with an 80 grit disk it was now nicely roughed up. I put some CA glue on the top surface of one piece and while quickly trying to decide how to smooth it around/out without glueing a brush to the surface I just took a second and tried to do a thorough smearing. It worked very well.
Once all 5 pieces of Corian were sandwiched with Glue I wrapped it in a paper towel. No purpose there except CA glue was getting EVERYWHERE. :) I then got out a double screw wood clamp, great for getting large even pressure across across 2 parallel surfaces and a HF special to boot. I let it cure over night just to be sure. CA glue should cure much faster than that but I wanted to be sure.
This last Sunday morning I started working on the turned and made it into a round cylinder and the cut the recess for the double sealed bearing and brought in the sides just enough barely slipping into the hand wheel of my Mustard Monster. All in all it took me about an hour to turn. Mostly because I have never worked with Corian before and it took me a while to figure out how to get clean cuts on it.
I then, again follow Don's comments, turned down a HF hose barb on the lathe so that it would fit inside of the bearing. This was remarkably easy especially after the corian. I cut 2 shallow grooves on other end for some O-rings. The one mid-way down is smaller than the one at the base. That was so that it would just barely slip in. The larger one gets drawn in and seals tight once the vacuum is applied.
I test it and it works perfectly. Almost no pressure stops the barb from rotating even at high speed. I then followed this up by making a tapped wooden faceplate as the core of the mounting system. As soon as that is done I will be ready to use it. It is glued up and trued up. I just have to mount the foam I bought.
I am at the moment not sure of the best way to attach the closed cell foam to the surface of the faceplate. Anyone have any suggestions? Elmer's white glue? Wood glue? CA glue? I was just planning to use some wood glue but will change up if someone has another suggestion.
Fun stuff working on this one! And not to shabby for about $2.64 in materials. The most expensive part was the bearing. OK so I had to buy 10 of them and have 9 left but who's counting and overall costs are just a tad more... but I will find a use for them at some point.
Joshua
Following a picture and an explanation from Don Orr I made my own rotary adapter.
I got some Corian samples from a local store. These about 2"x2" and 1/2" thick. They were highly polished and had been written on. I didn't think glue would hold something that highly polished so I put my sanding wheel onto the lathe with 2 quick swipes, one on each side, with an 80 grit disk it was now nicely roughed up. I put some CA glue on the top surface of one piece and while quickly trying to decide how to smooth it around/out without glueing a brush to the surface I just took a second and tried to do a thorough smearing. It worked very well.
Once all 5 pieces of Corian were sandwiched with Glue I wrapped it in a paper towel. No purpose there except CA glue was getting EVERYWHERE. :) I then got out a double screw wood clamp, great for getting large even pressure across across 2 parallel surfaces and a HF special to boot. I let it cure over night just to be sure. CA glue should cure much faster than that but I wanted to be sure.
This last Sunday morning I started working on the turned and made it into a round cylinder and the cut the recess for the double sealed bearing and brought in the sides just enough barely slipping into the hand wheel of my Mustard Monster. All in all it took me about an hour to turn. Mostly because I have never worked with Corian before and it took me a while to figure out how to get clean cuts on it.
I then, again follow Don's comments, turned down a HF hose barb on the lathe so that it would fit inside of the bearing. This was remarkably easy especially after the corian. I cut 2 shallow grooves on other end for some O-rings. The one mid-way down is smaller than the one at the base. That was so that it would just barely slip in. The larger one gets drawn in and seals tight once the vacuum is applied.
I test it and it works perfectly. Almost no pressure stops the barb from rotating even at high speed. I then followed this up by making a tapped wooden faceplate as the core of the mounting system. As soon as that is done I will be ready to use it. It is glued up and trued up. I just have to mount the foam I bought.
I am at the moment not sure of the best way to attach the closed cell foam to the surface of the faceplate. Anyone have any suggestions? Elmer's white glue? Wood glue? CA glue? I was just planning to use some wood glue but will change up if someone has another suggestion.
Fun stuff working on this one! And not to shabby for about $2.64 in materials. The most expensive part was the bearing. OK so I had to buy 10 of them and have 9 left but who's counting and overall costs are just a tad more... but I will find a use for them at some point.
Joshua