Deep throat drilling, a quick lashup machine

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I needed to drill sixteen 2.5mm holes near the centre of a 400mm diameter Acetal disk. Neither my lathe, mill or drilling machine have a throat depth that gets the drill anywhere near where is needs to be. Because the sheet is 13mm thick hand drilling is not practical as the holes need to be pretty square to the face. I had a drilling template (the part that is going to bolted on) but that is plastic too and fairly thin so might be easily damaged whilst guiding a drill.

Using stuff out of the scrapbox (mainly two lengths of UNIstrut and a linear slide out of a computer hard disk) I put the pictured contraption together in about an hour. I fastened my home made Dremel type tool (in the block I use to mount it as a toolpost grinder) on the slide carriage and used the UNIstrut fastened to Angle plate legs so the whole thing couls stand on my 40mm thick steel bench block.

there was enough weight for the drill to be used without fastening it down. The slide has very low friction and I fitted a return spring that just about compensated for its weight so I could peck the drill at very low speed into the glued on template and detect when it was dead central before drilling the hole fully. There is hardly any daylight in the setup as shown but there was enough to put a piece thin plywood under the Acetal.

The Acetal disk and the acrylic hemisphere were free issued to me, ideally I would have asked to the central 100mm hole to be (routed?) at the same time the disk was cut as creating a nice clean hole concentric to the disk posed a slight challenge. I got round the problem by drilling the ring of sixteen holes and using the inside diameter of the bolted on plastic part (a ready made bayonet ring) as guide for a routing cutter which was a laminate trimming type fitted with same diameter ballrace.

The end result is a dome port for a (shallow depth) underwater camera.

Ian P

Edit,

The why I dont throw things away refers to the UNIstrut, the two lengths came as part of the fixing kit with our bathroom suite as part of the mounting kit for the moulded Acrylic bath.

Edited By Ian Phillips on 12/08/2016 21:56:27

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

and why I dont throw anything away…..

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Good bit of thinking "Outside the Scrapbox"

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

well done Ian

George.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Ian P, like the way you use your angle plates along with scrap-box stuff and producing a good result, top marks.

Regards Nick.

[SteveMParticipant @stevem36008]

Good work there Ian. It'd be nice to see it followed up with the completed housing and camera together and ready for use. And some of the resulting pictures if possible to show us how well it works!

Thanks for sharing,
Steve

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

What sort of hard drive had a linear slide in it that was big enough for this? Or was it from a removable drive mounting?

Martin

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by SteveM on 14/08/2016 23:34:48:

Good work there Ian. It'd be nice to see it followed up with the completed housing and camera together and ready for use. And some of the resulting pictures if possible to show us how well it works!

Thanks for sharing,
Steve

I'd like to show you any resulting images but I might not see them myself (or if I did I would not know they were taken using this dome port!). I made this dome port for a company that hire out equipment to programme makers like the BBC, Disney, Nat Geo etc.

The bayonet fitted to this port is to fit underwater housings made by Nauticam, most probable usage will be with the dome part submerged to obtain 'half in – half out' video. Even to do that it will need quite a bit of ballast.

Ian P

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Martin Connelly on 15/08/2016 10:28:53:

What sort of hard drive had a linear slide in it that was big enough for this? Or was it from a removable drive mounting?

Martin

Many years ago I bought this slide, still with all its read/write heads attached, from a shop in Stockport that sold surplus electronic equipment. I have no idea what the drive or computer was but it must have been quite substantial. The slide has about 70mm travel and is beautifully engineered.

The main dovetail plate is made from 'very' hard stainless steel (400 series), I reground a cobalt drill seven times just enlarging one hole from 5mm to 6.5mm!

One on the ballraces that run on the main plate is heavily spring loaded but only has about 0.2mm travel and although it was not made to be part of a machine tool it is not strained carrying my motor and drill.

Ian P

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Ian Phillips on 15/08/2016 10:51:22:

Many years ago I bought this slide, still with all its read/write heads attached, from a shop in Stockport that sold surplus electronic equipment. I have no idea what the drive or computer was but it must have been quite substantial. The slide has about 70mm travel and is beautifully engineered.

.

That's a seriously good 'come-in-handy collection' you have, Ian.

I think I know the shop, but it's no longer the treasure store that it was.

MichaelG.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 15/08/2016 11:59:05:

Posted by Ian Phillips on 15/08/2016 10:51:22:

That's a seriously good 'come-in-handy collection' you have, Ian.

I think I know the shop, but it's no longer the treasure store that it was.

MichaelG.

Michael

The shop was on Lowfield Road in Stockport, I doubt whether is exists at all nowadays.

Ian P

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Ian,

You're reminding me of the 'Have you seen my Cat' emporium at New Mills. I still have a tobacco tin containing his 'Useful selection of 100 carbon brushes' though there are only 98 of them left now!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Ian Phillips on 15/08/2016 13:00:52:

Michael

The shop was on Lowfield Road in Stockport, I doubt whether is exists at all nowadays.

.

Ahh … Not the one I was thinking of [on lower Hillgate]

MichaelG.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Swarf, Mostly! on 15/08/2016 13:09:39:

Ian,

You're reminding me of the 'Have you seen my Cat' emporium at New Mills. I still have a tobacco tin containing his 'Useful selection of 100 carbon brushes' though there are only 98 of them left now!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Two out of a hundred in 30 or so years, not that useful then!

I still have a few things I bought over the counter at Whistons, I wish I still had a catalogue.

Ian P

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Pretty sure that slideway and ballbearing carrier system was an off the shelf commercial product serving the same sort of market as HepcoMotion do with their similar offerings. The Hepco system uses a V-edged slide and roller bearings with outer races grooved to match the slides rather than the dovetail slide with opposed bearing pairs that Ian's device has. I've had both styles through my hands in my working days. Expensive kit.

Bought one of Friend Whistons bargain boxes via the euphonious Cat-on-a-Log when I was 20 or thereabouts. 40 plus years on still working my way through it. Maybe 80% left but much of what has been used turned out to be effective "unobtainium" substitutes. The probably never will come in stuff incudes a few 'baccy tins of strange spacers and odd shaped screw in piins and a couple of tins of "what darn thread is that" screws. Impressed the heck ou of a few walk in miracle seekers a time or four by metaphorically pulling a fat juicy rabbit of the hat tho'.

Clive

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Clive Foster on 15/08/2016 18:51:15:

Pretty sure that slideway and ballbearing carrier system was an off the shelf commercial product serving the same sort of market as HepcoMotion do with their similar offerings. The Hepco system uses a V-edged slide and roller bearings with outer races grooved to match the slides rather than the dovetail slide with opposed bearing pairs that Ian's device has. I've had both styles through my hands in my working days. Expensive kit.

Bought one of Friend Whistons bargain boxes via the euphonious Cat-on-a-Log when I was 20 or thereabouts. 40 plus years on still working my way through it. Maybe 80% left but much of what has been used turned out to be effective "unobtainium" substitutes. The probably never will come in stuff incudes a few 'baccy tins of strange spacers and odd shaped screw in piins and a couple of tins of "what darn thread is that" screws. Impressed the heck ou of a few walk in miracle seekers a time or four by metaphorically pulling a fat juicy rabbit of the hat tho'.

Clive

Clive

I'm equally certain that this linear slide was specifically designed for the hard disk it was in!

The carriage is of the same construction and finish of some of the other parts, its seems to be a magnesium casting with a very thick and hard hard plating that is machined where some parts mount to it, presumably after it was (CNC?) machined. In addition there are holes and features that are specific to the electronic bits which would not be present if was a standard product.

Ian P

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I would guess the slide came out of what was called a Winchester, an early form of hard drive. They were about the size of an LP (remember them?) and had about 1Mb storage. If you sneezed in the same room they threw a wobbler. We have progressed a bit since then despite what the doom mongers would have us believe.

Edited By duncan webster on 15/08/2016 22:10:54

[Author]

Posts