The second is a set of adjustable handle bars for one of my brother in laws. This project is only held up because of the amount of material that has to be removed is causing me some discomfort issues with all the turning of the ‘Y’ axis on the milling machine. Since I didn’t feel up to resuming that work I thought I would have a go at a non critical project. A new bait board for the new (to us) fishing boat I share with one of my brothers (see http://.www.dartmouthfishing.co.uk ).

So having decided what to do I went to the marina and picked up a tube used to fit in a socket on the floor of the boat, the other end fits into a bracket attached to a table top. My idea was to simply make an oblong table that would use the tube, but instead of putting the table on it I would make a bracket that would allow the new bait table to sit on top of the tube.

A look into the stock room soon produced a piece of aluminum that had been ‘scrapped’ when I cut the wrong thread pattern for another project.  It would be ideal when bored out to suit the tube end. The design was simple really; just bore the centre to size then turn down the outside so four holes could be drilled and countersunk. These would be used to screw the bracket to the new wooden bait table made yesterday which already had its first coat of paint applied.

The first machining task was to mount the aluminum in the 4 Jaw chuck on my Myford ML7. Once the piece was centered and faced off a boring bar was used to bring the required diameter. I nearly made a mistake when taking the required diameter as I used the base of the tube for my measurement. When I had the bore close to size I picked up the tube and saw that the plastic insert that fits into the table, was about 100 thou wider than the base. So a little more metal was removed from the bore before cutting down the outside where the 4 holes for the screws would be located.

Initially I had the part flush with the chuck face when boring it out but then I had to reset it using parallels between it and the chuck face and of course had to center it again. Something that a little forethought would have overcome.  Still that job has now been completed so onwards and upwards as they say………………………..

Nearly completed- all that remains is to transfer the brass ruler made earlier