In theory, I have arranged my week so that I get Friday as a study day. In practice, of course, this week (week 4) was the first time I haven’t had to run a workshop or do admin or whatever. So I made the most of it.
The drawbar was mostly so I could use my slitting saw, which has an M12 thread. Cutting that slit in the little QCTP was the most terrifying thing I have ever done. The standard wisdom on the internet is to cut the whole thing in one pass, and just beast it out. And my experience with aluminium is to go FASTER.
That was a terrible idea. I started out at about 1600 RPM trying to take the whole thing. After picking out a few chunks of aluminium melted between the teeth, I ended up at 500 RPM taking 3mm cuts per pass. And that went pretty smoothly, and now it’s done. And some day I’ll work out how to get the slitting saw arbor out of the spindle, where it has seized. Until then, I guess I’ll be spending some time on the tiny lathe with the new toolpost! I should really have made a few more toolholders while I could use the mill….