Home Shop Machining/Projects

Home Shop Machining Projects
What follows (will be, stub for now) are projects suitable for home shop machining. Many are shop made tools. Some are excellent learning projects. Others are examples of highly skilled work. Because of considerable overlap, it is impossible to divide them up by these categories. Instead, each project will be tagged with information to make searching easier.

/ Cylindrical Square /
(Beginner, Shop Made Tool, Lathe) A cylindrical square is essentially a turned cylinder. A relieved base so only the edges of the base touch your flatness reference is useful. If a lathe is properly set up, then it will be square, bottom to side. Not only is this a good test to see if a lathe is properly set up, the squares are also useful setup tools in their own right.

A pair of cylindrical squares can check each other, provided a flat surface is used. Place the squares on their bases with sides touching, then look between them for light. Rotate one square a half turn and check again. If no light comes through, they are square. If light comes through, it will be wider at the bottom or top, which will tell you in which way they are out of square. Make multiple checks at different rotational angles to be sure where metal needs removing before beginning any modification.