..::: Sick of rising prices, Homemade stem Little update page 3

[Jaymz]

So continually annoyed by the consistently rising prices of parts, I persuaded the engineer at work to help me with a little project in return for Stella Artois



First quill attempt, got a bit too warm drilling the centre out and warped a bit



The body, not shaped yet, used M8 bolts but turned the cap heads down, the final shape will be close to an unstamped tuf neck with the 45 degree corners lopped off, I have two main bodies at this phase so far





Finally the hardware and completed quills, I was going to buy the hardware off rooski, but thought, I've made it this far, I may as well have a crack at making all of it. So bolts were ordered, then jammed into the hungry jaws of the lathe and a 10.4mm drill was rammed down its middle to drop the M10 bolt through, the wedges were a toad to make, we only have very archaic kit at our place so getting the angles of the wedges to match the quill was an arse as the job had to be taken off due to proper work needing to be done, and it never a goes back right after so it took some jiggling to get the angles right again



I'm hoping tomorrow I will get the time to take the corners off the bodies and add the holes for the quill
I'm going to highly polish one and leave the other one almost in its machined finish, just a quick scotch pad clean up to remove the dirty marks.


A day of success and failure today, I should be posting pics of two complete stems, unfortunately I'm not

While hauling the quills into the body, the hollow bolts ,of which I had only two, both fractured with too much pressure, so the remain unfinished now until next week.

But as you can see the final shape is sorted now and I gave one a quick scotch padding and I like the finish









So here it is all finished apart from I'm going to polish one (especially now after I hit the top cap with 1" spanner.
The pics don't really do them justice, the machining marks are almost sexual!! And I realise the top cap isn't straight, she who must be obeyed was yelling at me as dinner was ready!!

Enjoy












So today, I had a go at polishing the one that I damaged during the assembly process, I am not a fan of highly polished bling, especially on my ridden hard dirty shltters, so I wanted to lightly polish and keep the machining marks, I used the softest buffing wheel I have, and didn't use wet and or any sort of prep, just straight on the wheel, and the result is, well fantastic, it's better than I expected for sure, I'm contemplating doing the other one now.  iPhone pics yet again do no justice













Both finished and fitted

[Retrodan72]

Skills J, look great so far. 

[Bru]

Sweet Jay   

Bru 

[HUTCHMAN]

   love threads like this !

[oldschoolace]

You know this is my kinda thread 

Looking the nuts 

[Jaymz]

You know this is my kinda thread 

Looking the nuts 

they're beasts, when I started I went all imperial, then due to not being able to find a single 3/8" tap in the building, it changed to metric, so the large draw bolts are imperial, the size escapes me right now, but the tap was a shlt to turn into the hole it was that big, and the head is a 1" and the quill bolts are M10x140 as opposed to 3/8". The top cap should've been 5/16 which is pretty much 8mm anyway so for ease of use I had then tapped imperial, the over

[animal]

Superb is this fella  Can't wait 2 c them finished 

[Howser]

That's some amazing work there.   

looking forward to seeing these finished   

[monkian]

Incredible stuff Jay
Almost be a shame to use it when it's done.

[fischflo]

good lad ...top bombing

[griff]

Excellent work amigo 

[CustardLips]

Excellent work. 

[Munnyella]

Good work Jaymz, sure, your mate has the talent, because we know you havent!!!

Can I get a green anno one??

nah, only kidding, nice one!!

MM

[Jaymz]

Good work Jaymz, sure, your mate has the talent, because we know you havent!!!

Can I get a green anno one??

nah, only kidding, nice one!!

MM

we all know really I'm the project manager!!

I'd love to make you an anno green one, the issue though isn't the raw materials as it's under £15 it's the hours and hours and hours of labour, handmade in the uk, just isn't viable, porkchop sell the diacompe repop versions of tuf necks at £40 machine made in bulk and they have no personality if you know what I mean, but you can't knock it, its got the looks and none of the price

[rollin72]

nice1 Jay, looking good so far

[stu27]

That looks cool

[hokuspokus74]

really good idea,am a qualified cnc engineer,and have thought about buying a cnc milling machine & cnc lathe,i wouldnt mind making parts that would be needed as i know what ya mean by prices that ya pay for old parts etc,will have a word with my old boss and see what he could do for me in a few parts,and i'll need to look into the machines,then if you guys needed something,id do it for you,and i wouldnt put the arm in 

[NORTY40]

Looks good Jay   

Always good to see a bit of British engineering on here    ...... unless your mate is from Poland 

[chubby]

Brilliant fella, would love the skills, equipment but most of all the time to have a go at something like this 

[MartyC]

Reminds me of 1982 and the metal work shop at school making my own alloy powerdisks and spiders 

[BMX1973]

Great work and very cool. 

[nosepickben]

Good work. I want one!!

[Jaymz]

A day of success and failure today, I should be posting pics of two complete stems, unfortunately I'm not

While hauling the quills into the body, the hollow bolts ,of which I had only two, both fractured with too much pressure, so the remain unfinished now until next week.

But as you can see the final shape is sorted now and I gave one a quick scotch padding and I like the finish

[Gnarlyscoots]

Jaymz, it may be a good idea to get those big bolts heat treated or case hardened buddy.

[NORTY40]

Very nice Jay , loving the finish aswell