Kick Me. Please?

Embarrassment PLUS!

Last Friday I started a job I had volunteered to do for a friend of mine.
Simple type of job really.
But you have to pay attention!!
It's the sort of thing we used to make by the hundred so just set up the lathe tools, take a few simple measurements, throw in the material, switch on and away we go.
Didn't manage to get it all finished on Friday so back to it Saturday morning.
Let's get this little doodah out of the way.
OOOOOOPS!

That number was supposed to be a minus NOT a plus!

Better take a trip over to where the job is going to be used and see if it will still be usable.
Not only was the mistake too large to recover but the whole damn thing was completely wrong wrong wrong!

What we were trying to do was replace this


















With this





















Unfortunately it wasn't just a straight swap. The new wheel, very nice walnut and leather etc, was made for a particular type of truck and would not fit onto the steering column of my friends bus.

"No trouble. " I said.
"I'll just machine up a new boss to fit the steering column to the wheel.
A block of aluminium, a couple of hours and it'll all be done."

Famous last words.

It's taken about three weeks since then to actually source the material.
Everything's been going to bloody China!!
(Well that's changed hasn't it? But not soon enough to help with this job.)

Anyway . . .
After the monumental stuff up I had to get a new piece of material and start again.
Fortunately the setup was all done so a minor change to the program produced


















Of course there was a little more to it.
Like the bolt pattern, the internal taper to fit the shaft and the dreaded constant depth keyway on the taper.






















So next time I say I'll just do this little job . . . somebody kick me . . . just to make sure I stay awake!