DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

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edma194
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DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

Part 1: Not all castings are alike

While swapping parts between 2 PowerPro headstocks to isolate a problem, and moving the conventional headstock from my 510 machine to the sanding shorty at the same time, I ran out of machines ready to use. An extra shorty just for working on headstocks seemed like something useful to have around in general and something that would help immediately under the those circumstances. One of the PowerPro headstocks was mounted on a double tilt base that made it much easier to assemble and reassemble because the headstock could be oriented either way vertically in addition to horizontal mode. So I thought I could easily assemble a shorty just for working on headstocks, and it would be an added bonus if it had double tilt also. So I dredged up an old idea to make a shorty with 2 right side base castings that could tilt either way.

The plan was simple, assemble a machine using 2 right side hinged base castings facing each other. Nothing fancy in the process, to tilt the way tubes in either direction required knock the hinge pins out of one of the castings so I removed the roll pins holding those hinge pins in.

I dragged out 2 right side hinged bases, a set of legs with half decent casters, 1 bench tube and 1 way tube. To make it a shorty I was going to cut both of those tubes in half. I knew the cut way tubes would be too short to fit all the way into the castings. The way tubes come out short on the official product also so I planned to adjust the length later on so they would fit tight, although that wasn't absolutely necessary.

This looked like a half day of work to do, so I thought I might get it done if I worked a whole weekend on it.

First step, cut the tubes. Got done without a problem.

Next step was remove the roll pins holding in the hinge pins in the two bases. Immediately nervous because the roll pin in my drill press base is jammed in the hinge pin. But this time I remembered to get some penetrating oil on the roll pins first and they came right out.

Seems like I was cruising toward success until I put it all together. Turns out not all base castings are equal. I fit all the pieces together to see what I had. What I had were base castings that didn't line up with each other. I could barely assemble the way tubes into the castings once the bench tubes were in place. Full length tubes have a little flexibility that allow them to account for a very minor misalignment, which is still not a good thing, but I don't know how those castings could have worked on a full length machine either, everything was off by too much. I don't know what beat up machines the castings came from but either or both may have come from machines that were in parts when I got hold of them. I checked the tubes for straightness also. I would expect most used Shopsmith way tubes have a slight bend in the middle from the weight of the headstock and/or table bearing down over time. There was such a slight bend, but not enough to matter, certainly not enough to cure by rotating the tubes.

Loosening the bench and way tubes to allow some flexibility I managed to close it all up and mount a headstock on the way tubes, but the headstock wouldn't slide because the tubes were so misaligned. After checking for bent way tubes and all other issues I determined one of the base castings just didn't hold the way tubes in the right position, they just weren't parallel with the bench tubes mounted in that casting. It looks like the front way tube socket was not bored straight, and the other side wasn't perfect either. Photos below show the hole bored off-center and one bored straight. The shiny circle where the bore has bottomed out is clearly non-circular in the problem casting. The part must have been mounted off center when the casting way tube holes were bored.
off center hole.jpg
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centered hole.jpg
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So back to the pile of parts, carefully organized in totally random order, and found another right side base casting. Putting it all together again with a good casting was a breeze, but I had already spent the weekend with repeated assembly and disassembly to find what was wrong.
Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
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Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

Part 2: Some set screw work and preliminary success

Coming back to this some time later more goes wrong, but only a little. To take headstocks on and off requires loosening the setscrews on one of the base castings and removing it from the way tubes. That gets done with the hinge pin out and that part of the casting up in the air so access to the setscrews isn't blocked by the hinge pin, but they are located deep inside the casting, difficult to see, and still a little tricky to get the hex wrench inserted without shining a flashlight. The newer bases have the setscrews readily accessible on the top of the castings making way tube removal much easier, something desirable in general. I wanter to try that out so I drilled and tapped holes on top of one of the bases as a test. The metal looked a pretty thin at the top of the casting, and as I tapped the first hole I could see my tap had seen it's best days go by and it was leaving a roughly cut hole. I bought a new tap before continuing and tapped a clear hole on the other side of the casting. Before long the setscrew in that first hole popped out. Not surprising because there weren't a lot of good threads there. I worried better threading would not be enough because the material was just so thin. On the official double tilt castings I think the material is slightly thicker on top where the set screws are located, but they do warn about over-tightening those setscrews.

Looking over the casting I saw that a setscrew could be inserted in the inside corner formed in the top of the casting at a 45 degree angle where the material is much thicker. So, filled the bad hole with some reinforced epoxy stuff, then drilled and tapped a new angled hole. It worked out great, plenty of threads engaged, seems very secure and strong. There was already the other hole I drilled top vertically and I left it there to see how well it would hold up over time. Once I tried out the angled set screw it was clearly an improvement with more threads engaged so I drilled and tapped angled holes for both set screws on the other base casting. This didn't create any new problems but it used up all my available time. Photos below show the first casting with one angled and one top screw, and the other casting with both angled set screws.
vertical set screw.jpg
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angled set screws.jpg
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So I now had a homegrown double tilt for working on headstocks. Set screws are right there on top of the base pieces. I put a 500 carriage on the tubes so a table could be installed going out the back side of the carriage to help remove and install motors and hold parts and tools while working. Photos below show the the unit in horizontal mode and both right and left vertical mode. In one photo a table has been mounted from the back side into a carriage to hold parts and tools, and aid in mounting the PowerPro motor, which is so heavy it may be hiding a small black hole inside.
horizontal 01.jpg
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left upright 02.jpg
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right upright 2.jpg
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Part 1 of the project was now successful. But there was one annoyance left, knocking the hinge pins out and re-inserting them to change the tilt. It's not easy to do with the weight of a headstock on the tubes. The pins are a very close fit in the castings, and maybe slighty bent at the ends from the weight bearing on them over time. So getting them in an out wasn't all that easy and I wanted a quick change method like the official product has. I begin to tackle that in the next part coming soon.
Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
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Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

I've been looking for some time to follow up on this for a while. Shortly before the holidays I began adapting the tilt castings to work like the official double tilt system with a pointed screw locking the tilt castings to fixed hinge pins. This would require slots for the tilt casting to straddle the hinge pin. The official tilt castings also had reinforcement on the interior of the casting running from the open portion of the casting that fits over the hinge pin up to the heavier closed end of the casting. The casting is otherwise thin material there and could break from shocks or just repeated loading of the lock screw.

The first part was relatively easy, with a hacksaw and file I cut out slots in the castings so they could straddle the hinge pin. The closed end of the slot is the original hinge pin hole and the width is the 3/4" diameter of the hole. However, the casting has to come down on the hinge pin at an angle. That angle will vary with the length of the way tubes but it requires only a straight widening of the slot on the outer portion. Below are pictures of my casting with slots cut in and the official Shopsmith version.

DIY SLOTS 1.jpg
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DT SLOTS 2.jpg
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Following the slots I cut pieces of aluminum stock to reinforce the casting. It was clearly easier to reinforce the exterior of the casting instead of the interior. The pieces of aluminum are 1/4" thick that I would glue on to the castings with epoxy. Yes, glue. The large contact area will be very strong and there's no chance of warping or otherwise damaging the casting as could occur with welding or brazing. Super glue would is also effective joining aluminum like that, but I liked the more flexible and durable joint from epoxy. I made these pieces long also, to extend below the casting because the lock screw would be very close to the edge.

DIY OUTER SUPPORT PIECE.jpg
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So I cut the pieces, cleaned them up a little since they were cut from random pieces of leftover stock. I sanded off the paint on the casting and glued it up. Two steps in a row accomplished without snags. That made me nervous, surely some severe problem was about to arise. But nothing worse than an ordinary annoyance happened. In the next part I'll add a lock screw.

DIY OUTER SUPPORT SET PREPPED.jpg
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DIY OUTER SUPPORTS GLUED.jpg
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Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
Platinum Member
Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

Finalizing this project required adding the lock screw to the tilt casting. This shouldn't have been too difficult, wasn't really, but I did my best to complicate the matter anyway. Skip ahead to the photos if you don't want to be exposed to the mental ramblings of a madman.

To start with I had to select a lock screw diameter. The official version uses a 1/2" hinge pin with a 3/8" diameter lock screw. It has a fine threads which is a good idea for a hand turned screw like that. A high thread count will prevent vibration from loosening the screw and fine threading will keep it easy to turn. The lock screw is ground to a point and it's center is just under the bottom of the hinge pin so as it's tightened it wedges under the hinge pin, and actually flexes it a little. I have a 3/4" hinge pin to deal with and I didn't think it would flex at all so I'd need a stronger screw to wedge in tightly on hinge pin, initially I thought about 1/2" and I had some 1/2" fine thread bolts sitting around. So I could just tap through the reinforcement piece and the casting and use those screws. Except I didn't have that size tap, and even if I did I was concerned about those fine wide threads in holding up in relatively soft 6063 aluminum. Probably a needless concern but a brilliant idea popped into my head. I had some threaded inserts for spark plug repairs, and a tap to go with them. That would give me strong excellent threads I thought as I patted myself on the back for being so brilliant. All I had to do was get some M14X1.25 screws to use and I'd be set. Except they don't hardly make any. Certainly nothing with fine threading I could find. I even considered using a spark plug somehow, but the realization came to me that my I wasn't that brilliant and my shoulder hurt from patting myself on the back.

Back to an idea I had early on to use a flange bolt. The idea was to bury it in the reinforcement with the flange holding it in place. So I headed down to the hardware store to find some matching bolts and flange bolts. Probably should have thought that through a little further also, but the only matching flange and fine thread bolts I could find that day were M12x1.75. Growing frustrated with this process and eager to get on with gluing down the reinforcement I bought those and decided to use them no matter what. Only after that did I stop to consider the details of the angle and length of the point I would grind on to those screws, the space available between the hinge pin and the casting, plus a little extra room to put an o-ring on the threads as a stop, an unimportant detail I wanted to copy from the real version. I wasn't sure if I needed more space to retract the screw or not, so instead of burying the flange nut in the aluminum reinforcement I glued it on top, flange down to give me plenty of space, at least trying this on one casting. I very carefully cleaned and roughed up the mating surfaces, took care to keep the threads clean while using a bolt to hold the nut down while the glue set, and I had the end result shown below. If that glue doesn't hold I can drive screws into the aluminum so the screw heads hold it down but I think it's actually strong enough for the job.

So finally the time came to see what I had. The lock screw was properly aligned with it's center just below the center of the hinge pin, so I just had to start grinding a point on a bolt to try it out. Turns out I have no way to chuck up a bolt that big so I can keep the grind centered so I quickly rough ground a 45° point to see what I had. See picture below, it locked up on the hinge pin just fine. I think I'll grind it out to 30° making the point extend a little longer to see how it fits and throw an o-ring on too. If there's plenty of room to retract the screw I can try the next casting with the flange bolt going down into the aluminum reinforcement.

Here's the flange bolt glued onto the reinforcement

DIY OUTER SUPPORT WITH LOCKSCREW ANGLE.jpg
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First look at positioning of the lock screw

DIY OUTER SUPPORT WITH LOCKSCREW ALIGNMENT TEST.jpg
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Angled view to see the bolt alignment

DIY OUTER SUPPORT FIRST LOOK.jpg
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Lock screw with a rough point on it

DIY OUTER SUPPORT WITH LOCKSCREW POINT.jpg
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Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
Platinum Member
Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

I was grinding metal yesterday so made a jig to grind a good point on my lock screw, shown below. This is just a clean 45° angle to check it out, and it locks down very well. I have to make a new improved point grinding jig to try a longer taper (a hole closer to the end of the board so I can get it close enough to the belt or disk).

There's plenty of room to retract the screw with the 45° angle, even with an o-ring stop on it (where is that box full of o-rings in different sizes, this just came up in another thread). I'm sure there's room for a longer taper, but I liked the clean look with the flange screw in top hat orientation. I was considering doing the other end the same way but worried about the nut being securely glued. There was an easy way to test it though, I could just crank down the lock screw and see if will pop the nut off. The nut stayed on fine. Unexpectedly the reinforcement piece that it was glued to, which itself was glued to the casting popped off with the flange nut still attached. It was obvious why, I had clamped the reinforcement piece down too hard on the casting a squeezed out all the glue. I should have roughed up that pieces much more for the glue to grip also, the thin remnants or glue just peeled right off. Have to sand those pieces down, gouge them up good, and glue again. Probably use JB this time instead of regular epoxy, much less of it held that flange nut on tight. The other side looks like there's a good layer of glue under it, but I'll have to do the same test to check that out. Might as well get that done in case I have to glue both of them again. And of course, those pieces can always be secured to the casting with bolts, screws, rivets, et al.

new point.jpg
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Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
DLB
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Joined: Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:24 am
Location: Joshua Texas

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by DLB »

I was sure I posted about this but cannot find it. These pictures are of my first factory DT Base Arm. Eventually I noticed that it was different, I saw both earlier and later DTs that were not made this way. The reinforcement, compared to non-DT, is completely different than other factory DTs because it is added, rather than cast. Anyway, I did a shop-built DT similar to yours except I based it on this approach, the only version I knew about at the time. Mine are also based on 1/2" hinge pins, the only differences are I used steel for the doubler piece and 3/8" standard bolts with a small handle welded on. (Not as nice as factory.) The point of this being that there is nothing wrong with mounting the reinforcement with screws or bolts, that is how the factory did it.

Double Tilt Base2 (2).JPG
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DT Base Arm.JPG
DT Base Arm.JPG (194.77 KiB) Viewed 1009 times

For this to work with 3/4" hinge pins, The reinforcement would likely need to be on the outside of the Base Arm.

- David
edma194
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Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

I'm pretty sure the need for reinforcement came from slamming down one end of the assembly, lifting one end when heavily loaded, or overtightening the lock screw. The original casting is 1/8" thick, but castings are prone to fracturing and the screw is located out on an open end far from the strong parts of the casting. You'll notice they caution against over-tightening the top set screws locking down the way tubes. The material is pretty thin there, maybe the latest casting are slightly thicker there, but more material could be added there to get a stronger grip with the set screw.

I know I've gone too far trying to replicate the design aspects of the actual product. For some reason I use my own design method of overthinking and underthinking the project and then trying to split the difference. I don't why I do that, it never works well ;) This was something I wanted to do for fun though. My own needs were met shortly after getting two properly formed tilt castings connected, the rest was all for the experience. I think for a shorty you could just glue a flange bolt directly on the casting, or use a small back up piece glued or bolted on.

So I could have just started bolting stuff on, would have worked well enough, but this time I took the scenic route.
DLB wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 4:44 pmI was sure I posted about this but cannot find it.
Y'know, I've had several posts mysteriously disappear on me recently. At first I though I was forgetting to hit Submit or something, but I'm sure it wasn't that the last couple times it happened.
Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
Platinum Member
Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

I re-glued the reinforcement piece with nut and this time it held up under stress. The problem seems to have been a lack of flatness in the part and/or casting. By applying pressure in the middle of the part I forced all the glue out to the edges. Possibly that left an air pocket in the middle or maybe the springiness of the metal would have eventually popped the pieces apart. This time I scored both parts deeply with the edge of a file, and simply held the piece in place with little pressure and it is solid so far. Also used JB, once again it proved superior to other epoxies on metal.

I think I'm going to finish the second end exactly the same way, gluing on a flange nut like a top hat. That will leave me plenty of room to make a longer taper on the locking bolts without any issues retracting them.
Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
Platinum Member
Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

Coming back to wrap this up. I put the lock screw in the second tilt casting exactly the same way as in the first one with a flange nut. This left me plenty of room to put an O-ring on the screw as a stop, although that's hardly needed. I'm going to get use roll pins to retain the hinge pins in the castings. My plan is to only insert enough to hold it in place with enough sticking out that I can just pull it with pliers if I ever need to remove them.

So, this could be done much simpler. Check out the pictures from DLB above, do something simple like that. Some reinforcement for the locking screw is a good idea, but I went too far with it, and not all the castings and hinge pins will be the same anyway. I had no plans for this other than working on headstocks, but it makes a perfectly good shorty, and I think I'd use it with full length tubes if I needed a full size machine.

Here's a couple of shots of the completed unit, plus my fancy point grinding jig.
DOUBLETILT2.jpg
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DOUBLETILT3.jpg
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point jig.jpg
point jig.jpg (59.97 KiB) Viewed 772 times
Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
edma194
Platinum Member
Posts: 1875
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: DIY Double Tilt Base Experiment

Post by edma194 »

Also, I'm adding a picture of another monstrosity I created, a double belt sander. Total waste of time but I wanted to do something just for fun. Not going to do a whole thread on it.

The two belt sanders are mounted on 3/8" threaded rods running through side frames that normally are joined with 8" long carriage bolts. A pair of coupling nuts keeps them far enough apart so the 2 spindles will fit next to each other. There's no practical way to put a belt on the second sander, or practical reason to do this in the first place. I saw a picture of a home brew double belt sander in a used Shopsmith ad. I was mildly interested in having 2 sanders with different grits mounted, but if I have 2 belt sanders the obvious solution is to mount them on either end of the machine.

double belt2.jpg
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Ed from Rhode Island

510 PowerPro Double Tilt:Greenie PowerPro Drill Press:500 Sanding Shorty w/Belt&Strip Sanders
Super Sawsmith 2000:Scroll Saw w/Stand:Joint-Matic:Power Station:Power Stand:Bandsaw:Joiner:Jigsaw
1961 Goldie:1960 Sawsmith RAS:10ER
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