Two new wood flasks

Made 2 new wood flasks just a wee bit larger than my two smallest ones.    Maybe an inch longer and wider.  This will let me ram up 4 identical parts.

Routed grooves for sand retention.  Keys are are 7 degrees on one and 10 on the other.   The keys works well after easing the inside edges.

All scrap wood.

Master Mill Poly-V Pulleys

Rather than make several avoidable mistakes in the shop I am working through it here to see what I can come up with. 

I am concerned about the motor pulley. The motor is a DC treadmill motor. The shaft is 17MM  (0.669") by 1" length with an additional section 1/2-13 LHT on the end.    I don't like the idea of registering a 4" aluminum pulley to this shaft.  Maybe a better bet would be to sleeve the shaft to a larger size and mate the aluminum pulley to the sleeve.  Or insert the steel sleeve into the pulley.

Maybe its best to make the sleeve thread onto the motor shaft.  That will give me several tries at making it work.    When I have a good true sleeve running on the motor I could lock tight it in place so it can be run in either direction.  In the last attempt I used a grub screw on the mill pulley and it caused a few thou runout on the pulley when tightened down

Sourced the 1/2 13TPI LHT tap.

Press Brake Update

Just back from Delhart Bearing.   Seals for both cylinders came to $117.48 with tax.

Both gland and dust seal have a larger end which faces the oil.

Thinking about assembling them in the house where it is warm.

Need to think about cleaning the old oil off the press itself.  Hot water, purple power, and a stiff brush might work.

Needed pictures of the Alemite air over hydraulic pump.

Called Alemite.  Tech said the model number should be near the fluid outlet.  Get that and send it maybe with some photos to their tech support for liturature.

Was going to ram up some molds today but got side tracked cleaning up in and around the shop.   A while back I prepared two batches of green sand using a clothes dryer screen,  Both use bentonite clay, one is my local sand and the other play sand.   The greensand is in sealed buckets so it should be about ready to use.  Might need to adjust moisture a bit.

Want to know if my local sand is better when used with bentonite.

Want to know how my local sand and play sand compare.

Maybe tomorrow.

Press brake update

Tested the system without the leaky main cylinders.   Did a bit of bending with the ram on the side.

Took the cylinders to Dalhart Bearing to have the internals ordered.    Waiting on their call.   The good news is that the cast iron rings are about $18 each as are the gland seals IIRC.  Should come in under $200 if I am lucky.   Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it all works when I put it back together.

Learned that thickness of what one bends determines the width of the die.   This does not account for the hydraulics.

    material_thickness X 8 = die_width

The die on this machine is between 3/4 and 1" depending on how you measure it.
So it should easily handle material between 3/32" and 1/8" or 11 ga and 13 ga.  This is way more then I should need bending sheet metal.    Maybe even bend up some light frames.

The side ram has a lower die of 1 3/4"  or 7/4" which results in a material thickness of 7/32.   The 5/16" in the video was a bit of a stretch in more than one way.  Pun intended.