centering ring construction pics

[Stymye]

It was raining all day,and I was watching paint dry
I needed some centering rings for a rocket ,I decided to make a batch of rings , took 2 hrs, but I made 3 dozen of various sizes


I updated My photo site with a pictoral
see my sig below (Rocket Lab)
I will be adding quite a few new photos of other stuff in the next day or so

I'm using a mini metal lathe but the same technique can be done on a drill press,

the benefit of the lathe is that once I turn a set of rings to size
I can lock the position and do one stack of rings after the other in one slow pass

I never take a measurement,,I take the body tube,and draw a circle around the outside onto the wood,this leaves the ring outline a little oversize, thats good

I cut them on a scroll saw a little outside the line, a jigsaw or even a coping saw will work

I than use a compass to find the center and drill it, to fit snug on a 1/4" screw

I take a stack of these and make an arbor with a 1/4" screw, fender washers on each side, and a nut

at this point the stack can be mounted in a lathe or drill press,hand drill,
I cut it down to fit by checking it with the body tube from the first step,,checking more often as It gets close to size

the rings can be called finished at this point and used as bulk heads,,,
plus with the 1/4" pilot hole I've got some rings ready to bore the I.D. to a size I need later on, and no measuring tools needed,makes it easier

I'll update the thread when I have all the other pics uploaded

..gotta feed the pic beast..!! lol

 

[Stymye]

one more pic
a bt-80 ring stack ,with the cutting tool locked to size for a single (slow!) pass,,a little sanding to smooth the edges and done
I saved up and got the lathe from harbour freight for less than $300,, I tried some threading and it was pretty accurate,,
obviously I'm proud of it..heh!

a drill press would also work