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Had several titles come to mind for this thread but the old ad slogan won out.

I have an ongoing project that has ground to a halt while I figured out a few things. Then I decided that I wanted to make it a certain way but was unsure how to do so....... hate when that happens.

So lets start with a picture.
Since this is going to be a bit of a mystery I'll let you look for clues of what I'm making. But since some people don't like the game I will wrap up most of the case here in this post. So if you like the game look at the picture and then when you are ready to move on do so. The ones who just want the facts just keep reading.

Since I have my "drill press" shopsmith set up for another operation I decided to use the powerpro one that is my general purpose one. If you look closely at the picture you will see a large hex nut. It is a 5/8"-11 but the size is just because I wanted a large nut and that is what I found in the store. The nut cost 27 cents in case you needed to know.

From the picture you will see a pencil, rule and center punch. The layout tools needed for the job. Close is all that you need.

You might be able to see the starter bit I used and I'm sure that the #7 drill bit shows up pretty well. The drill chuck make it very likely that there will be at least one hole drilled, but I will tell you that there will be more then one. I'll also say that the nut is involved. The vice, the new one from shopsmith is also going to be used.


If you are in to this sort of thing you might guess that the tap is a 1/4-20.... hence the drill bit size. The wrench holds the tap and from this you might guess that at least one hole will be tapped, again I'll say that more then one will be tapped.

Let's go back to the hex nut for a moment. It has 6 sides, and if you were to drill a hole in every other side you will end up with....... 3 holes. The holes would then divide the nut into 1/3 of a circle. Anyone got it yet?

Now comes the give away, another picture.
It would appear that there were 3 holes drilled, centered on the flats of every other face of the hex nut. Each of the holes were tapped with the 1/4-20 tap. And it looks like three bolts might get added. OK lets add them.
So who guessed a three way hub? Yea right........

Sometime in the future I'll get on the project where this will be used and I will show you then.

One issue that came up was with the clamping to do the drilling. The vice needed a way of "squaring" the nut to the flat. This is how I did that.
It worked great!

So now you all know how to make a three-way nut. Hope you have a reason to make one as it is cool project.

Ed

Is there a three legged stool, ala Chris Schwarz in the works?
Folding Stools: The Scrapple of the Campaign Furniture World
Make Your own Tri-bolt for a Folding Stool

Ed, That photo essay and accompanying text is pretty cool.
I immediately thought of at least 132 uses for that nut that wouldn't work.
But, thanks to Ron I now have two in mind (A matching table makes two).
Many thanks to you both.

It is a pea splitter to make split pea soup. That is brillant!!!!

Ed in Tampa wrote:It is a pea splitter to make split pea soup. That is brillant!!!!

I have a piece of ham in the freezer. Ark, now I need to go and get some split peas and make a soup. Thanks!

Yet another project underway but far from finished. Since I'm making guesses rather then educated decisions I put together a sample to get a feel for how this should work. Mostly it kept falling down..... after about the fifth time frustration set in and I decided to let it go for another day. Want to do it first thing when I'm fresh rather then when I already tired.

I think I need to tie some strings from end to end to end and have them all be the same distance apart. That way it will not fall and I can see how to proceed and what angles I will want to establish before I do any cutting.
Anyway the nut works like expected. I had seen a picture of one so I just went ahead and made one that sort of looked like the one I saw. The link to the instructions would have been helpful had I had it before I started, oh well.

Ed

If you really want to get fancy Lee Valley is now making these tri-bolts.
Lee Valley Campaign Stool Hardware

rpd wrote:If you really want to get fancy Lee Valley is now making these tri-bolts.
Lee Valley Campaign Stool Hardware

Now that is a nice looking piece of hardware!

If I ever wanted to make a chair and I thought I could do the hardware justice I'd go that way.

Thanks for sharing.

Ed

Today things went much better. I got some strapping that is used to hold a bunch of bags together when you buy them in the store. My wife stored up a few so it was both free and easy to use for playing with.

I came up with 6" center to center on the strips. This gave me the look I was looking for and it seems stable enough. The legs with the strips attached now stay upright and allowed me to get a pretty good idea of the angles I need to make it flat.

Pretty wet and rainy today so this is as far as I got on this project. I did snap a couple of pictures so you can see how this is shaping up.
I'm thinking that it will be two pieces, the legs and then the top. I will have to look for how the final web will look, I might try some leather straps, perhaps an old belt for the material but that is still up in the air.

Ed

Uh and I thought it was a pea splitter! Who knew?

Seems like an interesting project.