What a week. Drove home to the parents in St Catharines on Saturday and then drove out on Sunday to Kalamazoo Michigan to go to my maternal grandmother's funeral. Was nice to see the family members again even if under sad reasons. Weather held off and allowed us to be at the gravesite when she was lowered in the ground. Now she and my grandfather will be back together again. We came home on Thursday and by Friday afternoon I was back in my own house.
Needless to say I did not get much done this week. However I did manage to start my first milling job on the Van Norman #10. This was to start milling the castings I had made up for me by Lake Foundry in Grimsby Ontario. The first stage was to carefully set up the casting such that I could machine the base area. This casting is awkward and slightly spindly such that securing the casting would be interesting. On the way home I had picked up some 1,2,3 blocks from KBC who had them on sale for 19$ a pair and this helped with securing the item. Once the item was as locked down as I could get it I carefully machined down the two "legs" and the space between them such that it will sit flat up against the side of the lathe body. It took a little manipulating to ensure I had it in the right spot so that it was square to table and to the tray support arms that still needed to be machined. Here are a few pictures showing the bracket getting the base milled. Here is a link to a Youtube video showing the milling operation. I used a shell mill that came with the mill and bought shell mill holders to secure the cutter. Unfortunately I got a little too aggressive and damaged two of the cutting edges before I finished the base. Luckily even with the damaged cutting edges I could still manage to finish the base.

Once the base was done I removed it from its clamps and reset it on the mill table to be able to mill the tray support arms. Again I carefully set it up to enable me to remove the least amount of metal and still have the trays flat and level. I won't be able to prove this until I install it however it looks good so far. I'll only be able to mill the one support arm for the lower tray and I'll include a picture of this however the inner support arm is obscured by webbing and means I'll have to smooth this one the old fashioned way with files. The upper tray support arm will be able to be milled on both locations.  So here are a few pictures of the setup, and milling the lower support arm.

Over the remainder of the week once I get home from work I hope to be able to slowly finish all the milling operations that are needed to finish this tray bracket. Once that's done I'll carefully locate and drill the holes that accept the bolts that secure this to the lathe. Once that's done I'll do some bondoing and sanding to smooth out the casting and then paint it to match the lathe. So I still have some work ahead of me.

As an add on a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that a fellow in Ohio who has one of these Hardinge Cataract lathes was looking to sell his lathe. He's asked me to mention it again and advise that new price is 2250$ for everything that he has. If you are interested in knowing more please contact me by leaving a comment and I'll connect you up with him.

See you all next week.
Harold Mulder