Build - Die Filer

May 30, 2020

This build is done using a "kit" of castings purchased from Metal Lathe (see this page). I purchased the basic kit and bronze bearing material for a total of $191.60 (total includes shipping costs). The kit was purchased on the above date, and promptly set aside as a future project!

Getting Started

Here it is October 2021 and I am finally getting started with the build. The first step was to clean up the parting lines on the casting for the base. With that done, I mounted the casting in the 4-jaw chuck of my lathe. Since the casting is a bit irregular, getting it centered and square was a case of "looks about right."

Turning and facing the bottom was a slow process. Because the casting is not balanced, I had to run the lathe at a slow speed and take shallow cuts. There was a tiny area of the base that did not get completely flat (see photo), but I opted to leave it that way as I likely would have had to face off an additional 1/8 inch to remove it, and it will be invisible when the base is mounted in any case.

Filer Base - Lathe Operations

The next step was to reverse the base in the lathe, and turn and face the top section. It turned out that the top of the casting was not complete concentric with the base, so I did another "approximate center" before turning the top section. This was primarily for cosmetic purposes, as I did not want the hole for the file rod to be off center in the casting, or to have the turned top of the casting look off center with the rest of the base.

The hole in the top section was drilled first with an ordinary length drill, and then an extra long drill of the same size was used to drill a corresponding hole through the bottom of the base. This was done in order to proved a pilot hole in the bottom that would be concentric with the top.

The top hole was then enlarged using a succession of larger drills and Deming style drills up to 7/8 inches. Since I did not have a 55/64 inch Deming drill, I could not ream to 7/8" inches. However, I did have an adjustable reamer so my plan was to drill to 7/8" (0.875"), and then ream to a slightly larger size. I could then adjust the OD of the bearing sleeves accordingly.

As I did not have drills long enough to reach clear through the bottom of the base, I had to make a drill extension for the Deming style drills.

The final step in drilling the bearing holes for the file rod bearings was to ream out bot the top and bottom holes. Once again I had to make a an extension (not shown, but similar to the drill extension). With the bearing holes reamed out, I could now face the top of the casting down to the designated height. However, I thought that the specified height of 5.25" left the top section looking much too short, so I elected to go with a final height of 5.5", and adjust the bottom bearing sleeve and plug accordingly. To make sure I did not lose track of this change, I made a note on the drawings to remind myself.

This completed the lathe operations for the filer base.

The almost complete crank web was then mounted in the mill, and the hole for the crank pin was drilled and reamed to 0.250".

Crank Pin

The crank pin was made from a 1" piece of 0.250" diameter dowel rod. Of course the dowel was much too hard to saw or turn, so I mounted it in a small machinist vise and ground it to length on my belt sander.

Slide Block

The slide block was made from bearing bronze, starting with a slice from a 1.25" diameter rod of that material in my stock pile. This disk of material was milled to the proper thickness, and then converted into a rectangular piece by milling, sawing, and final milling.

The next step for the slide block was to drill and ream the center hole. This was done on the mill, finishing up with a 0.251" "oversize" reamer. The reamed hole was deburred, and all edges and corners were eased on a deburring wheel.

Yoke

With the slide block completed, I started on the yoke next. Before starting the milling, I gave the sides and bottom alight sanding on my belt grinder, just to knock off the high spots.

Next I milled one side, taking off about 0.020"; this became my first reference surface. The piece was then turned in the vise and the top was milled flat - this time taking off about 0.030". The piece was again turned in the vise in order to mill the second side; note in the photo that I used a piece of scarp aluminum on the vise face next to the "bottom" so as to account for any irregularities and to force the opposite reference face flat in the vise. Another 0.020" was milled off the second side.

With the sides and top milled square, I could now mill the bottom flat, and to the specified dimension. This left the piece in the perfect position to mill the slot for the slide block.

I milled the slot to depth with a 7/16" mill, and then milled off the opposites faces of the groove a little at a time to get to the final dimension, testing the fit of the slide block as I went along. For the final fit, I simply did a couple of spring passes in order to get an excellent fit.

The next step was the hole for the clamp screw. To find hole position that would look "centered" on the top curve, I used an Inverted 0.75" end mill (see photo) to find a location which would look concentric to the rounded end. I then marked this as the zero position on my DRO. Note that the work-piece is clamped in the vise in a position that will allow me to mill the end; it is also on parallels to facilitate drilling the hole.

It was now a simple matter to mill the protruding end 1/2" from the planned hole position, and then drill, tap, and counter-bore the hole. As a side note, I found that a 7/16" counter-bore was too small, so I went with a 1/2" counter-bore.

The hole for the file rod is next. It was a simple matter to position the piecework in the mill vise, center drill the location, and then drill using a succession of drill sizes from large to small. Rather than drilling a 1/2" hole, I elected to drill to 31/64" and then ream to 1/2".

For the saw slot, I decided to use a slitting saw instead of a hacksaw or band-saw. The slitting saw takes a bit longer, but I think gives a nicer appearance.

The final milling operation for this piece is milling the "long" end to final length. I positioned the work piece in the mill and made an initial pass with an end to establish a flat surface. I then did a length measurement to determine how much material to remove, and milled to length. This idemsion is not critical, so measuring with a digital caliper was sufficient.

The picture below shows the finished yoke. As a quick test, I put a 1/2" end mill in the file rod hole and tightened the clamp screw - worked nicely!

Brackets

These two parts are pretty straightforward - just drill cut and radius some bar stock. The plans call for counter-boring, but I decided to make a small change as will be noted below. Some operations are not shown in the pictures below : After drilling the holes, before I radiused the parts on the mill I used a belt grinder to remove most of the waste - ths greatly speeds up the milling process. After milling, the parts were deburred and polished using a deburring wheel.

As mentioned previously, I did not counter-bore the brackets. The MLA website where I purchased the kit shows a variation using bosses at the top of the brackets. I liked the way it looked so I decided to go with bosses on both the top and bottom. I started with a piece of steel rod 3.75" long by 1" diameter. I polished the rough stock in the lathe using abrasive cloth, and then counter-bored for the 3/8-16 SCHS. I used 3/16" radiusing mill as a form tool to turn a radius on the lathe - this worked, but there was a lot of chatter; I used abrasive cloth to remove the chatter marks. In hindsight I think it would have been better to take the time to grind a form tool. I made each of the four pieces in succession. The parted off ends pieces were cleaned up by facing off about 0.005" on the lathe. Note the bosses are different lengths - 0.625" for the top (I originally had this at 0.875",but had to reduce the length to obtain clearance), and 0.575" for the bottom.

Back Plate

Why is it called a Back Plate when it's in the front? Whatever it is, it's a fairly straightforward job of turning, facing, and drilling and counter-boring a bolt circle.I'm also going to be adding an oil filler cap (which is not in the plans).

In order to face the front of the casting, turn to diameter, and reverse in the chuck with enough clearance to face the back to dimension, I need to add a spacer to raise the casting from the lathe chuck face. A 3D printed ring 0.2" thick should do the trick.

Note that I used my four jaw chuck for this, but in hindsight the job would have been a bit easier if I used by 3-jaw self-centering chuck.

Next , I relocated to my mill to drill and counter-bore the bolt circle. Each hole was center drilled and then drilled to size first, then each of the eight holes was counter-bored. I used my Bolt Circle Calculation spreadsheet to determine the hole locations for the bolt circle.

The final step is to drill and tap a hole for the oil filler cap. I had assumed that I would already have the needed tap for this, but it turned out to be a 5/16-32 thread. Guess which tap I don't have!

It didn't take long to order and receive the needed tap. The idea for the oil filler cap came from here. He didn't specify locations for the filler cap and breather hole, so I located the filler cap on a center 1" up from the circumference, and the 3/32" breather hole on a center 3/4" down from the circumference.

While working on boring the base for the backing plate, I made a small but I think useful modification to the plate - I tapped the two holes on the side with a #12-24 thread (see photo below). This makes it possible to use two #12 screws as jacking screws to remove the plate from the bore if it should get stuck; since the plate is flush mounted it can otherwise be difficult to remove. While I realize that a #12-24 thread is not all that common these days, it's the closest thread size to the existing screw hole. With the plate bolted down, the tapped threads are invisible.

Hat

The "hat" is a dust shield for the file rod bearing, so called because of its appearance.

I decided to make this part out of aluminum, instead of the specified steel. First, because I have nice chunk of aluminum that is the right size, and second, the lighter aluminum will have less inertia to resist the reciprocation motion of the file rod. I have a small concern that the setscrew may not hold up as well in aluminum, but in the worst case I will just re-make the part out of steel.

I had a large cylinder of aluminum in the right diameter, so I sliced off a "slug" with my bandsaw. The slug was then chucked in the lathe and faced on both ends. I then turned down one end to the smaller diameter, making sure to leave enough of the large diameter for the angled "brim" of the hat. Instead of rounding the end as shown in the drawings, I instead put a large chamfer on the top at the same angle as the brim (15 degrees); I then used abrasive cloth to soften the corners.

The part was then reversed in the chuck so that the rest of the work-piece could be turned to the large diameter, and the part faced to the specified dimension. I made sure to chuck the part so that it extended enough to leave room to turn the brim angle.

Table

To mount the plate for the table on my lathe, I used the suggested method of drilling and tapping a 5/16"-18 hole in the "center" and using a length of all thread to hold it against the faceplate. Except that since I don't have a faceplate, I used my 5" chuck (with jaws removed) instead. To help center the all-thread on the lathe, I 3D printed "centering plugs" for each end of the spindle hole. I was curious to see if tightening the pull of the all-thread would cause the face of the casting to depress inward, but I could not detect any deflection. Note the use of two oak "parallels" to hold the casting off the face of the chuck. Note also that I used a jam nut on the all-thread to make sure it did not loosen during turning.

To make sure the work piece was approximately centered, I used a dial indicator on the OD. Since this was a rough casting, this was only approximate but reasonable close.

I turned the outer diameter. This was a very slow process as I could only remove about .010" per pass. I also made a minor error, in that I turned the OD down a bit too small. This turned out to be a lucky mistake, because I needed to be able to mount the turned plate in my 5" chuck and this would not have been possible with the full 7" diameter. In addition to turning the OD at this point, I also faced the plate just enough to remove the rough casting.

With the top face partially turned, I now had a reference surface to mount that face against the chuck jaws so I could face the underside rim parallel to the top face. The faced rim now gave me a reference surface to reverses the piece in the chuck jaws so I could face the top side to dimension. To allow clearance for the bosses on the bottom side, I had to add small "spacer" standoffs to the chuck jaws. I made the spacers by cutting off 1" pieces of a some scrap aluminum bar; not exactly precision spacers, but my calipers showed they weer all within 0.001" the same in thickness. I used double-sided tape to temporarily attach the spacers to the chuck jaws.

I could now mount the table in the chuck and face it to the desired dimension. Again, this was a very slow process as I could only remove about 0.005" at a time without the lathe stalling. Removing this much left a fairly rough surface, so as I approached the final dimension I reduced the amount of material removed with each pass by a smaller amount each time, until the last few passes were only a half a thou. This left me with a reasonably smooth surface. A smoothing file on the top edge removed the knife edge.

Since I decided to modify the kit design so I could use throat plates (got the idea here), I needed to enlarge the center hole. My plan was for a center hole of 1.5" diameter, with a counter-bore for a throat plate of 2.5" diameter and 0.1" thickness. Since the mounting hole I originally drilled in the "center" was a bit off-center for the turned piece, I first used a 1/2" end mill to bore a true center hole. This was followed by a series of Deming type drills up to 1" diameter (the largest size I have).

To get the center hole up to 1.5" diameter, I next used a boring bar. I then used the same boring bar to counterbore to 2.5" ID for the throat plate. I made the counter-bore by first boring to a depth of 0.005" and a diameter of 2.490". The then continued to counter-bore to this diameter, removing 0.005" with each pass until I reached a depth of 0.100". A final plunge cut at the desired 2.5" OD completed the counter-bore.

To complete the lathe work, I polished the face with abrasive cloth, starting with 120 grit and working up to 400 grit. This also removed the very sharp edges on the center bores. The face of the plate is nicely smooth after polishing, although due to porosity in the cast iron some very tiny random pits, but these are barely visible and are of no consequence.

The next steps are the dimensioning, drilling, and tapping of the bosses on the underside of the table. The first step is to mount the plate on the mill, so that the bosses are lined up parallel to the mill table travel. Since the bosses are slightly irregular in shape, I used a bit of scrap angle iron to line them up (see photo); I double checked this later to make sure it also "looked" centered.

With the work piece clamped to the mill table, it was a simple matter to use an edge finder to locate the center of the bore. I then used a felt tip pen as a sort of rotating center finder to temporarily scribe center lines on the tops of the bosses and on the edge cut-outs. These center marks will be used in later steps, and also serve to confirm that the bosses are lined up properly.

With the bosses milled to dimension, it's time to drill and tap the screw holes. I mounted an angle plate on the mill, squared it up, and bolted it in place. The table was then clamped to the angle plate, and aligned vertically using the previously scribed centerlines. In addition to using the scribed centerlines, I also used a test indicator to make sure the previously milled boss face was parallel to the mill table. It was interesting to note that just using the centerlines was quite accurate.

Next, I used a centerfinder to locate the center of the bosses. I then set the mill to 1" from the table face and drilled and tapped the hole. The final step for the bosses was to clean up the tapped hole with a countersink.

The final task to complete the filer table is to drill and tap the mounting holes for the table throat plates. Using the already mounted angle plate as a reference surface (offset with a 1-2-3 block), and using some large parallels to offset the bosses, I aligned the left hand parallel with the face of the left hand boss. There is some minor inaccuracy in this due to the short length of the boss face, but it is accurate enough for this step. The mounting holes themselves will be located in reference to the accurately located center of the filer table.

Base - Mill Operations

Time to get started on additional work on the base. Task #1 is to mill the bosses to dimension. I started by mounting the base on the mill table. I inserted a rule in the bore (see photo) to get an approximate right angle alignment. Two clamps (not enough! - see further down) were lightly snugged, and a center finder was used to double check the approximate center of each boss to make sure the bosses were in alignment. An edge finder was used to locate the center of the top bore, and the "spinning felt tip pen" method was used to mark centers on the bosses, and at right angles to the bosses. The approximate depth to mill was also inked for each boss.

Note : See my comment later about milling a "locating flat" first.

I successfully completed milling the first boss, and was just starting to mill the second boss when a "lucky accident" occurred - the base slipped in the clamps and the end mill gouged the end of the boss (see photo). I call this a lucky accident because it would have been much worse if the base was gradually slipping in the clamps and I did not notice it, or if the slipping occurred later at a more critical time. As it was, I was able to reposition the base (those ink marks helped!), and re-clamp it - this time using four clamps snugged down very tightly.

With the base back in position and properly clamped, the first thing I did was mill a flat on the large end (see photo); this flat will be used as a locating feature later. In hindsight, this should have been the first operation I did - this would have helped me reposition the base after my "lucky accident". Note that my end mill was not long enough to mill the entire face flat, but that is not necessary at this point.

With that done, milling the second boss proceeded uneventfully. Two holes need to drilled and counter-bored in the base, but I need to make a tool to do this first, so for now I just put light center marks at the hole locations - these marks will be useful later,

The next operation kept me on edge until I completed it successfully - drilling the bolt circle in the top. I made a change from the plans on this, opting to use #3-48 screws. I first marked all of the hole locations using a small center drill (this also helped make sure I had the correct hole locations). I located the hole positions using calculated X-Y positions, and set those positions with my DRO.

Next, each of the holes was drilled 1/2" deep using a "sensitive drill" chuck - highly recommended when drilling with small drills. After all of the holes were drilled, I double checked to make sure all holes were at the right depth - I didn't want to risk breaking the tap in a shallow hole.

I used the same sensitive drill chuck to start the tapping process with a #3-48 tap; once it was started straight I used a tap handle to complete the job. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see a bit of blue tape on the tap - this marks the 1/2" depth and is a safety feature to help make sure I don't break the tap. These tiny taps are easy to break, so I tapped each hole slowly and carefully, making slow half-turns, backing up, etc. until I reached depth, and then carefully backing the tap out of the hole.

With six chances to break the tap, I was holding my breath until the final whole was successfully taped and the tap removed. Phew!

I finished up by using a small hand-held countersink to remove the light burr on the holes.

The next step is to drill and tap the side bosses.e base was clamped to an angle plate (already mounted and squared on the mill table), and an indicator was run along the previously milled flat to establish it in a vertical position (see photo). A short length of all-thread along with a T-nut and clap nut served as a machinist jack under the bottom boss to counteract the pressure of drilling the top boss. Next, a center finder was used to locate the center of the boss in relation to the top bore.

However, in order to locate the "physical center" of the boss, the end of an end mill was located on top of the boss ans centered such that equal amounts of boss showed on all sides. The nominal center of the boss (per the plans) would be X=4.000 and Y= 0.000, but the actual physical center was X = 4.435 and Y= 0.037. In fact either one of these two settings would work, but I opted to go with the physical center.

With the correct position determined, it was a straightforward set of operations to drill a center hole, drill the hole to be tapped (to a depth of 0.95"), and then tap using a center finder. After initially trapping with a taper tap, I followed up with a bottom tap, and finished by deburring the hole with a countersink. The second boss was handled the same way as the first, using the same X-Y coordinates for drilling to ensure that the holes would be in line.

With both bosses completed, I did a test fit on the braces. I found that the external bosses I had made for the braces were too long to clear the underside of the table, so I shorted those two bosses. With that minor correction, the parts all fitted together nicely.

Boring, drilling, and tapping for the Back Plate is the next operation. The base is clamped to the angle plate on the mill table, and leveled using a dial test indication on the previously milled flat. It was difficult to get even two clamps on the angle plate; but I should have added more clamping elsewhere as I once again experienced some slippage. Fortunately I was able to correct this and add more clamping.

I centered the base, again using the "physical center" - however, I centered on the large circumference of the face instead of the inner circumference of the hole in the face. This created a minor problem late when drilling the bolt circle, as will be seen.

With the recess bored, it was now time to drill and tap the bolt circle for the Back Plate screws. This is when my centering problem revealed itself - three of the bolt circle holes were not completely withing the inner circumference. Fortunately, the holes were only slightly "in the air". In order to drill and tap these holes without breaking a drill bit or tap, I clamped a bit of scrap aluminum to the inner circumference. This enabled me to drill and tap a completely solid hole. All of the bolt circle holes were drilled 1/2" deep, and were tapped 10-24 first with a taper tap and then with a bottoming tap.

Note : There is actually a warning about centering for the Back Plate in the Addenda to the plans, but unfortunately I didn't remember seeing that until after re-reading the addenda.

The next operation the base is to bore out the opening for the motor shaft bushing. The base was mounted to the angle plate on the mill, and the position adjusted using the previously made center marks. With the base positioned, the top of the bore was milled flat.

My small benchtop mill does not have enough vertical travel to use a boring head for this operation, so I made a boring bar from 3/4" drill rod held in a collet. The cutter was made from a small piece of tool steel (small lathe cutter bit stock). This cutter had to be quite short initially in order to fit into the bore, so I ended up having to re-make this piece several times to make longer and longer cutting bits.

Another problem I ran into was that as I advanced the cutter down the bore, it wore down quite a bit., with the result that the bore was slightly conical. I didn't notice this at first, so the problem got worse and worse as I proceeded. When I finally figured out the problem, I had to go back to shorter cutters and slowly open up the bore from the bottom up to straighten out the bore.

To complete the bore, I sacrificed a small indexable cutter carbide cutter from my minilathe, and made it into a boring cutter. This also required me to use the reverse end of my boring bar to make a holder by drilling and filing a square hole. There was just barely enough room for this cutter in the bore, but it did an excellent job of cutting a smooth and consistent bore.

The final operation on the base is to drill and counter-bore the mounting holes. This requires making two 7/8" diameter counter-bores in the foot of the base. The problems here is that I do not have a 7/8" counter-bore, and even if I spent the money to buy one, it would probably not fit into the location where it needs to go. The solution is to tka e abit of a detour and make a special purpose counter-bore bit.

Cap

I made the cap from some bronze looking mystery metal from my stockpile. It was a straightforward operation on the lathe to turn and bore the basic cap shape. On the mill, I drilled and counter-sunk the bolt circle holes for #3-48 flat head brass screws.

Plug

The plug is a simple piece made from a bit of brass stock I had on hand. - a straightforward turning and boring operation, although the outer diameter needs to be a good fit for the hole bored in the base.

Bearing Sleeves - File Rod

The bearing sleeves for the file rod were made from bronze stock supplied with the kit. The stock already has a central hole; this was enlarged with a drill bit to 31/64" and then reamed with an adjustable reamer to give a smooth sliding fit to the file rod. Note that I have left the file rod incomplete at this point, so that I can use it both for this test fit, and for use in installing the bearing sleeves.

I just happened to have a 1/2" adjustable reamer on hand (picked up at an estate sale somewhere), and since the file rod is 1/2" drill rod this was a handy way to finsih the inner bore of the bearing sleeve. I adjusted the reamer so that it was barely cutting, and then made additional incremental adjustments to enlarge the bore until the file rod blank was a smooth sliding fit.

I wanted to turn the out diameter of the sleeve between centers, so I could remove it for test fitting. Initially, I was thinking about making a lathe drive center, as Frank Ford used for his filer build. However, in researching that topic, I ran across a related (and much simpler) method - friction machining between centers, so I decided to give it a try (spoiler alert - it worked!). With the inner diameter finished, faced the end of the stock and cut a 30 degree internal taper in the end; this internal taper end will eventually mate to the headstock dead center. I then revered the stock in the four jaw chuck and faced the other end - this will mate with the live center and does not need a taper.

Next I removed the four jaw chuck and inserted a dead center in the spindle. With a live center in the tailstock, I held the stock between the two centers with sufficient pressure to hold the stock securely. I took cuts of 0.005" depth until the entire outer diameter was cleaned up. At this point I could now measure the external diameter. I measured at each end to make sure the diameters were the same - and found they were not! IT was clear that I was cutting a very slight taper, and that my tailstock needed adjusting. Since I still had a fair amount of material to remove, I simply made incremental adjustments of the tailstock, followed by cuts of 0.002" depth (again measuring both ends after each cut), until I was getting identical diameters (within 0.0005" - 5 tenths) at each end.

I continued reducing the diameter in cuts of 0.005" depth - this is about the deepest cut I could make and reliably avoid slipping of the "friction hold" (I could make cuts up to 0.010" depth, but at that depth I sometimes experienced slipping , so I decided to be conservative). As I approached my target diameter, the workpiece was getting hot from the cutting, so I called a halt to allow the workpiece to cool down.

Making a Counter-Bore

With a bit of online research, I found this useful page on making counter-bore cutters : http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/mill/cbore/cbore.html

I decided to make the counter-bore cutter in twp parts : A removable shaft, and the cutter bit itself. This approach had several benefits :

• While I had a good idea how long the shaft needed to be, if I guessed wrong I could always re-make it.

• The shaft needs to be small in diameter, while the cutter head is relatively large in diameter - making two separate pieces made it possible to conserve material. It was also easier to start with small diameter drill rod for the shaft, as opposed to turning down a long large diameter piece.

• With the cutter head as a separate piece, I could easily fit it into my collet holder for milling operations.

• Harden the cutter head is easier without the long shaft attached.

Work on the cutter head began by turning the basic profile on the lathe (not shown), starting with a length of 1" diameter drill rod. Once the cutter head blank was ready, it was held in a collet block to drill and tap the hole for the set screw (used to hold it to the shaft) . The blank was then reversed in the collet block for milling the four cuts needed to make the "teeth."

Once milling was completed, the part was de-burred, and the cutting clearance was filed for each of the teeth. For this operation the cutter was kept in the collet block. I used a felt-to marker to color the parts to be filed - this made it easier to see how the filing was progressing. Once all of the clearances were filed, the part was heated with a torch and then quenched in oil (I used O-1 drill rod). After quenching, I tempered the part at 450°F for an hour to temper it (I use an old toaster oven I picked up cheap at a re-sale shop)

After tempering, I cleaned up the cutter with some WD-40 and scotch-brite pad. The final step before assembling the two pieces was to hone the cutting edges with a stone.

Base - Drilling and Counter-boring the Mounting Holes

With the counter-bore bit completed, it back to the mill to drill and counter-bore the two holes for the mounting the base. It was a fairly simple matter to re-position the base on the mill table, get it square, and re-locate the center. First a 5/16" hole was drilled using an extended length drill. Then the counter-bore bit was used (with about 1/16" clearance from the boss!) to cut the counter-bore. As the foot to the base has a slight "slope" I advanced the counter-bore cutter until it was cutting a fill circle, and then continued for an additional 0.100". The process was repeated for the second hole.

Making the counter-bore cutter was quite a bit of work for for just two holes, but it was a very useful learning experience for me. I may never have to use it again, but I can at least re-purpose the shaft for other cutting tools I may need to make.

Found a Motor!

Found an ugly looking motor for $3 at an estate sale:

REFERENCES

The kit can be found here : http://mlatoolbox.com/MLA-18.html

Here are some links to other builds using this kit :

Builds :

• Building a Bench Mounted Filing Machine (video) : https://youtu.be/hzw1dtv4GZ8

• Die Filer or Bench Filing machine ("Clickspring") : http://www.clickspringprojects.com/die-filer-or-bench-filing-machine.html

• MLA-18 Die Filer : http://beevo.org/MetalWorking/MLA%20Die%20Filer/MLA_Index.html

• MLA Filing Machine Kit (Frank Ford) : http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Projects/Filer/diefiler01.html

Other :

• Making Cutting Tools in the Home Shop : http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/mill/cbore/cbore.html

• A Shop Made CounterBore : https://www.gadgetbuilder.com/CounterBore.html

• Friction Machining Between Centers : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckdl-hnyu-M

• Make a Lathe Drive Center : http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Projects/DriveCenter/drivecenter.html

Videos :

• Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Making a Die Filer Machine! : Not really a one day build - actually just adding the base and motor.

• Building a Bench Mounted Filing Machine : Annoying music track and no voice-over (deploy mute option!) - but it shows all of the steps using a mill based approach.

• Metal Lathe Accessories Filing Machine : Not a build - just shows it running. Worth a look for a nicely done build.

Links to purchase files :

• Falcon Tool Company : https://falcontool.com/PublicStore/product/Swiss-Parallel-Machine-Files-Sets,649,689.aspx