Hey,
I very recently had the chance as it was my final day at the workshop to have a bit of free time on the machines, i pm'd my mate a few days prior and asked him if he would like any think to be made up for him and he was in need of some centre caps. So after receiving his tidy MS paint design's i got to it.
I knew it was going to be a bit of a push when i only had 1 day to do 5 centre caps, but the worst happened and i got pushed onto high priority jobs ALL morning
, i finally had some free time and it was 1 in afternoon.
To kick things off i cut up some stainless and clocked it in to make sure it was running perfectly true using my D.T.I. (custom brass handles) lol
Once the material was running true i then faced-off the front face of the metal to tidy it up but also to make it flat.
After that step i then centre drilled the face of the material ready to put a revolving centre to it as there was at least 60mm of material out of the chuck and the centre would provide support.
Once centre drilled i added the revolving centre
Now the material was setup correctly and i was happy with the way it was running in the chuck i took my first small cut.
I always measure off the first cut as from a first cut the material would take off any small spots of wobble and would be cut true my usual first cut is about 0.0020 of an inch or 20 thou.
From the first cut i then measured the outside diameter of the material using a 2-3inch micrometre.
I then took down the size of the material in imperial converted it into metric and did some workings out to show how much was left to take. From there the material began to take some shape.
I turned the outside diameter of the material down to the correct size, from there using the lathe tool i measure and marked on the material 2 lines, the line on left indicated the total width of the material and where to part of, the second was to show me where to machine my next datum down to (this was the bit of centre cap that would be going inside the wheel)
Using my lines i then machined my datum and the material starting to look more like a centre cap
From here i was ready to part the material off ready to make the front of the centre cap, as you can see the stainless got pretty hot even though i was using cutting foam, the metal was even spitting at me at one point burnt my damn finger lol
This is how the material came of the cut was not perfect but i shall tidy that up as i go along.
From here i left the remaining material in the lathe i was on as it was all cut down to the right size, so to finish the face of the centre cap i took the piece i had and followed the same steps to clock it in true but on a different lathe which was smaller. I then machined the face down to what my mate wanted (fingers crossed) it came out looking like this:
I now decided to try and polish and get the best finish i can so using these i emried the material down and scrubbed using a scotch pad
Me being as fussy as i am i still was not happy with the finish of the inside part of the centre cap as it was scuffed slightly so i placed the material onto a lapping machine this uses a rotating fine grinding wheel with diamond lapping paste which is hella expensive
I first used a course lapping machine to acquire this finish:
In my eyes this was still not as good as i could get it so onto a finer lapping machine
This gave me this finish:
It still had the small scuff, at this time it was nearing the end of the day so i decided to take some piccys of the final product
Here's a pic of the majority of the tools + equipment i used:
I hope this has been an interesting read my only issue was the time as i managed to make one centre cap in 3 hours i needed at least another day to complete the rest following this process i don't like cutting corners .
Just a taster of what ive done/can do so if anyone needs any help etc feel free to drop me a pm.
Ashley
Ohh apologies if the pics aren't great as i was using my phone.
Can a mod edit the thread title had a slight typo
I very recently had the chance as it was my final day at the workshop to have a bit of free time on the machines, i pm'd my mate a few days prior and asked him if he would like any think to be made up for him and he was in need of some centre caps. So after receiving his tidy MS paint design's i got to it.
I knew it was going to be a bit of a push when i only had 1 day to do 5 centre caps, but the worst happened and i got pushed onto high priority jobs ALL morning
, i finally had some free time and it was 1 in afternoon.To kick things off i cut up some stainless and clocked it in to make sure it was running perfectly true using my D.T.I. (custom brass handles) lol
Once the material was running true i then faced-off the front face of the metal to tidy it up but also to make it flat.
After that step i then centre drilled the face of the material ready to put a revolving centre to it as there was at least 60mm of material out of the chuck and the centre would provide support.
Once centre drilled i added the revolving centre
Now the material was setup correctly and i was happy with the way it was running in the chuck i took my first small cut.
I always measure off the first cut as from a first cut the material would take off any small spots of wobble and would be cut true my usual first cut is about 0.0020 of an inch or 20 thou.
From the first cut i then measured the outside diameter of the material using a 2-3inch micrometre.
I then took down the size of the material in imperial converted it into metric and did some workings out to show how much was left to take. From there the material began to take some shape.
I turned the outside diameter of the material down to the correct size, from there using the lathe tool i measure and marked on the material 2 lines, the line on left indicated the total width of the material and where to part of, the second was to show me where to machine my next datum down to (this was the bit of centre cap that would be going inside the wheel)
Using my lines i then machined my datum and the material starting to look more like a centre cap
From here i was ready to part the material off ready to make the front of the centre cap, as you can see the stainless got pretty hot even though i was using cutting foam, the metal was even spitting at me at one point burnt my damn finger lol
This is how the material came of the cut was not perfect but i shall tidy that up as i go along.
From here i left the remaining material in the lathe i was on as it was all cut down to the right size, so to finish the face of the centre cap i took the piece i had and followed the same steps to clock it in true but on a different lathe which was smaller. I then machined the face down to what my mate wanted (fingers crossed) it came out looking like this:
I now decided to try and polish and get the best finish i can so using these i emried the material down and scrubbed using a scotch pad
Me being as fussy as i am i still was not happy with the finish of the inside part of the centre cap as it was scuffed slightly so i placed the material onto a lapping machine this uses a rotating fine grinding wheel with diamond lapping paste which is hella expensive
I first used a course lapping machine to acquire this finish:
In my eyes this was still not as good as i could get it so onto a finer lapping machine
This gave me this finish:
It still had the small scuff, at this time it was nearing the end of the day so i decided to take some piccys of the final product
Here's a pic of the majority of the tools + equipment i used:
I hope this has been an interesting read my only issue was the time as i managed to make one centre cap in 3 hours i needed at least another day to complete the rest following this process i don't like cutting corners
.Just a taster of what ive done/can do so if anyone needs any help etc feel free to drop me a pm.
Ashley
Ohh apologies if the pics aren't great as i was using my phone.
Can a mod edit the thread title had a slight typo
Last edited:
