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Crayford Focuser

saturn5

By saturn5
in DIY Astronomer

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saturn5

saturn5

Posted
Posted

Been trying to get this finished for a couple of weeks but work has been quite hectic lately.Today was quiet so had a good go at it in between little turning jobs that cropped up.The beauty of having the Maho CNC mill is once i've got it programmed i can press the button and get my job done at the same time as i'm doing the work i'm getting paid to do.Bosses are quite good anyway,dont mind "homers" being done so long as the company work doesn't suffer.

Anyway below is the end product(sort of)i did have the spindle spring loaded to apply pressure onto the draw tube but now i've gone for a nylon screw so its easy to adjust pressure if required.No doubt i will be tweeking the programme here and there but other than that i'm quite happy with it.

Runs as smooth as the smoothest ,smooth thing from smoothsville and when i think i'm totally happy with it will give it the black annodising treatment :(

post-13543-133877334049_thumb.jpg

post-13543-133877334054_thumb.jpg

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saturn5

saturn5

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Thats a beauty :(

Are you taking orders as I'm in the market for one?

I think the boss might think i was taking the you know what if i started using his kit to make money on the side :nono:

Nice - very nice cooldude.gif

Any reason for leaving the top open though?

Arthur

There is a reason but incase it doesn't work i will keep it to myself for now if you dont mind(save me from looking a bit of a div) nothing revolutionary,more cosmetic...Cheers for the positve vibes guys. :thumbright:

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barkis

barkis

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Where can one buy chunks of aluminium to make things like CF's. All I can find are various lengths and sizes of Round. bar, plate, tube and the like. Nothing like the ingot you would need to fashion a body for a Crayford.

Ron. :(

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saturn5

saturn5

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Ron...i made mine out a bit of 6 inch round bar that was spare from a previous job,4 inch diameter x 2 or 2.5 inches in length would probably be large enough to make one.

If there are any machine shops where you live or scrappies for that matter,i'm sure you could pick up a piece quite cheaply,in fact very cheaply.

Where i work most of our square /rectangular shape jobs are made from round bar just because we have tons of the stuff lying around,obviously for larger jobs billets are bought in.

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barkis

barkis

Posted
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Where can one buy chunks of aluminium to make things like CF's. All I can find are various lengths and sizes of Round. bar, plate, tube and the like. Nothing like the ingot you would need to fashion a body for a Crayford.

Ron. :(

If you don't have a local Al stockist try:-

http://www.metalsontheweb.co.uk/asp/home.asp

John

That's brill. John,

That is going to turn out to be a great link for me. Thanks very much. I've been buying flat bar and round on ebay, but it was not economical using solid bar, as most of the material was wasted. I could never find a thick walled tube on the bay.

Cheers mate.

Ron. :D

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Thats a beauty :(

Are you taking orders as I'm in the market for one?

I think the boss might think i was taking the you know what if i started using his kit to make money on the side :nono:

I wonder if he might take a different view if he/the company were to have a small compensatory fee? After you've done the hard bit doing the program for the machine, it would seem a waste to do just the one.

Kaptain Klevtsov

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saturn5

saturn5

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Mmmmm,you have a point there KK.....However the copany has just won an estimated £4 million contract from an oil company starting in the new year,roughly 30 weeks of 12 hour shifts so i'de better get them done before xmas :(

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