Interesting to read along! I've not got much experience with knurling. My lathe is not rigid enough to be pushing into the metal with a single point knurl.
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Kick Starter Shaft Repair.
- Thread starter Jim
- Start date
Not exactly sure mine is either. We'll find out.
@Jim, I think your Atlas is similar in size to my Logan 820. I have knurled plenty of knobs, thumbwheels etc., with what amounts to a single-point knurl (where the lateral force is being transmit through the cross-slide, not through a clamp-style knurler) so I think you should be ok. Minimum stick-out from the chuck, obviously, and a live-center if stick-out is unavoidable. Compound-rest set parallel to the cross-slide and I also consider it important that you minimize the lateral offset of the knurl from the centerline of the tool-post bolt, if that is possible. Carry-on!Not exactly sure mine is either. We'll find out.
Been meanin' to bring that up....
My live center, like prolly most of us here, is Chinese. Don't get me wrong, it works just fine, but I'm concerned that the side loads from knurling will ruin the bearings inside it.
So I'm thinkin' I'll use a dead center instead. I don't see any reason why that won't work.
Anyone see a problem with that?
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Would it be worth it in the long run to replace the bearings in the Chinese live center with American made ones from Timken?
Also, do you plan to case-harden the splined end once you're all said and done and verify it fits the kicker boss?
Good idea, but that's way down on my to do list. For now I'll just avoid serious side loads on it.
I ran a file across it in various place... it's not hardened. Acts like plain old mild steel.
Forgot to answer you...
That was my initial plan when I realized the original was unobtanium. All the shaft's I've got off Ebay are too big. After 3 or 4 misses, I gave up.
Plus the heat from the welding most likely took any sort of temper out of it, which would explain why it acts like mild steel.
Just my
Just my
I checked it before I did anything else.Plus the heat from the welding most likely took any sort of temper out of it, which would explain why it acts like mild steel.
Just my
Progress report? 
The kicker boss showed up this evening. At first glance the splines are a fair bit smaller than the shaft I previously documented. I don't have the ability to exactly measure the splines... measuring tools or measuring ability... dunno.
Anyway, I previously measured 1.5mm on the DT250 (
) shaft. This RD200 boss looks to be a little over 1mm. Looking at my fingers will give you an idea on how small this thing is.
So I measured, as best I could, the diameter of the hole to the outside of the splines. Near as I can tell, it's about 13mm... which agrees with the rough measurement I took on what was left of the shaft splines.
I dug up some 1/2" rod that measured at 12.55mm and cut up a few test pieces. I used the 1.5mm knurling wheel on my first try. It was ugly. Not sure how to describe this, so bare with me here...
It made a mark in the rod at 1.5mm increments as it traveled around and when it came around to the marks it already made, it didn't fall into the same pattern. It cut just short of the mark and started making marks that were between the two. That make sense? So what it wound up doing was digging in between the 1.5mm of the wheel teeth, but not quiet centered between them. With me?
When I pressed on and kept forcing it, like the guy in the video, it just started chewing up the splines it already made (unlike the video).
As you can guess, it didn't line up with the splines in the boss.
Next up I tried the 1.0mm wheel. Had better success with that. No "double cutting" on the splines. I won't call it a perfect match to the dia of the shaft, but it's pretty damn close.
Unfortunately, 1.0mm isn't the correct spline distance either. It doesn't match the splines on the boss.
So, near as I can tell, the correct knurling wheel size is 1.25mm. I measured the dia of the shaft after knurling and came up with 12.98mm, so I think I'm on the right path with a 12.5mm shaft, I just need to find a 1.25mm wheel.... sigh...
The kicker boss showed up this evening. At first glance the splines are a fair bit smaller than the shaft I previously documented. I don't have the ability to exactly measure the splines... measuring tools or measuring ability... dunno.
Anyway, I previously measured 1.5mm on the DT250 (
) shaft. This RD200 boss looks to be a little over 1mm. Looking at my fingers will give you an idea on how small this thing is. So I measured, as best I could, the diameter of the hole to the outside of the splines. Near as I can tell, it's about 13mm... which agrees with the rough measurement I took on what was left of the shaft splines.
I dug up some 1/2" rod that measured at 12.55mm and cut up a few test pieces. I used the 1.5mm knurling wheel on my first try. It was ugly. Not sure how to describe this, so bare with me here...
It made a mark in the rod at 1.5mm increments as it traveled around and when it came around to the marks it already made, it didn't fall into the same pattern. It cut just short of the mark and started making marks that were between the two. That make sense? So what it wound up doing was digging in between the 1.5mm of the wheel teeth, but not quiet centered between them. With me?
When I pressed on and kept forcing it, like the guy in the video, it just started chewing up the splines it already made (unlike the video).
As you can guess, it didn't line up with the splines in the boss.
Next up I tried the 1.0mm wheel. Had better success with that. No "double cutting" on the splines. I won't call it a perfect match to the dia of the shaft, but it's pretty damn close.
Unfortunately, 1.0mm isn't the correct spline distance either. It doesn't match the splines on the boss.
So, near as I can tell, the correct knurling wheel size is 1.25mm. I measured the dia of the shaft after knurling and came up with 12.98mm, so I think I'm on the right path with a 12.5mm shaft, I just need to find a 1.25mm wheel.... sigh...
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Do you have a mill with an indexing head?
this one is so ELEGANT
dunno; heat the shaft red hot and hammer the kickstarter on?
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@Jim, the issue of double-cutting of the knurls struck me the other day as I was thinking about this... The diameter of the shaft you intend to knurl needs to be either 1:1 with the circumference of the knurl, or larger/smaller by an integer-multiple of the arc-length of one knurl tooth... I am not making this a statement-of-fact, but more of a hypothesis. Does this make sense?
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maybe both?
do the heat hammer to get your correct tooth count spacing STARTED on the end of the shaft now set it up and knurl . The teeth marks from the hammered in kicker should help guide the knurl to make the correct number of teeth. Are you lubing the knurler?
Nope.
Yes it makes sense. That's about what I figured too.
