G'day Chris here, and welcome back to Clickspring.
This bluing tray set that I made in a previous video
has been working well for bluing screws and other small parts.
In particular the tray with brass shavings is very effective at distributing the heat slowly
and evenly across the part, ensuring a uniform blue finish.
But some of the blued parts coming up in the clock build in the near future,
are quite long and thin,
so a longer tray will be required when I blue them.
The design I have in mind for a third component of the set, is consistent with the other two
parts, in that it screws onto the common handle, and has brass feet to keep it off the bench.
However the box shape would present a bit of a challenge at the soldering stage if it
was made of separate parts, so I'm making it as one piece that can then be folded into shape.
Now there a quite a few ways to tackle this job, but I thought I'd show you a mill equivalent
of the super glue arbor you've seen me use so often on the lathe
I'm using this block of aluminium to hold the workpiece,
and the first thing I'm going to do is give it a light resurface with this flycutter.
The flycutter is shop made, and has quite a lot of mass in the disc,
and generally gives me a smooth cut.
Acetone cleans off the surface, and a light coating of glue is enough to hold the part.
Once the work is in position, pressure from the spindle holds it in place as the glue cures.
I can now machine all of the exposed surfaces in the one operation, starting with the perimeter.
I've made this D Bit cutter specifically to cut the v grooves. Click the link if you'd
like to see a video showing how this was made.
For a simple shop made cutter, its remarkably effective at removing metal, and combined
with the DRO, took care of the bulk of the stock removal for the grooves.
The cutter has an included angle of 92 degrees, which is going to help when it comes to bending
everything to shape later.
I also shifted the cutter across to take a final skim cut on the sides of each groove,
to create a little more space for the solder to fill.
And as always with superglue, a gentle heat breaks the bond.
The little corner pieces need to be removed before I can fold the box to shape, so I used
a jewellers saw takes care of those, and then I tidied up the saw cut on the belt sander.
A little heat from the propane torch to anneals the brass, and then once it had cooled down
I set about forming it into the shape of a box, with some flux, silver solder and tying wire.
Now that the brass is annealed, it bends easily without cracking,
leaving a small gap for the solder.
Although I realised at this point that it was probably a better idea to paint the flux
on before closing the gap! So before I did any more bending, I fluxed all of the remaining join surfaces.
The brass holds the box shape well when its cool, but it'll flex and sag quite a lot when
under heat, so I used some soft tying wire to bind it all together for the soldering operation.
A little more flux, and then a good measure of silver solder was placed into position,
enough to form a decent fillet when it flows.
The work always looks a bit rough after silver soldering, but the main objective has been
achieved, a good solid join, with a nice fillet.
The bracing wire can now come off,
and the surfaces given a general clean up with coarse grit emery paper.
The corners came out quite close and square,
but I decided it would be better to round them off,
to match the curve of the bent edges.
Then I took the part back to the mill, to form the thread for the handle.
Now the tray should lean comfortably on the handle when its sitting on the bench,
so the feet need to be positioned slightly forward of the center of gravity to achieve this.
Using a scrap rod, I decided on a pivot distance that gave a good result,
and then formed the holes and threads for the feet.
The brass feet were then turned on the lathe.
I put a countersink on the upper surface,
and then after screwing the feet into place, secured them with a light rivet.
With the addition of this rectangular tray, the bluing tray set can now accommodate most
of the common shapes and sizes I'll need to blue over the next few clock projects.
And of course what better way to test it, than with a Clickspring.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you later.
If you'd like to see how the rest of the bluing tray set was made,
here's the video showing that.
And if this is your first Clickspring video, thanks checking it out.
I post regular home machine shop project videos like this one,
as well as videos on a longer term clockmaking project, so be sure to subscribe.
If you're looking for some new projects for your lathe or mill, then take a moment to
visit clickspringprojects.com where you'll find the plans for this and several other projects
available for download.
And finally if you'd like to help with the creation of these videos,
then have a look at the Clickspring Patreon page.
Thanks again for watching, I'll catch you on the next video.