Help needed with Optimus 11 original short control knob

Hi Folks.

After a couple of weeks, I've got an update. I grabbed a piece of brass tube, and with careful(ish) application of a blowtorch, hammer, needle files, hacksaw, and a few minutes in the lathe had crafted this effort:

So far so good. Now a few minutes with some aluminium tape and I managed to make a bucket for it:


a better view:

I'm sure you can see where this is going....


Fill bucket with JB weld and ignore for a few days, then pull the bucket apart, to give a cast blob



Tidy the blob up a bit

Now tape a thermocouple to the side of it, and fire up my trusty 111T for 20 minutes of boiling a pig pan of water


You can just about see that the temperature maxed out at 100 degrees. I knew that the JB weld is good (according to the packet) to about 550 degrees, so I figured I'd see how good an insulator it would be, as an interface between the shaft and the knob. Happily, my prefered material is good to 120 degrees, so I should be OK - Yay!

Hopefully the shiney part should arrive in a few weeks

--
Mike

 

Clearly that was a big pan, not a pig pan (unless you need to boil a micropig, I guess!)

 

Not the best paint job (never have been handy with a brush), but I'm pretty pleased with the result.

The first two pics are the raw part, you can see the slight ridge effect of the production process. If I were to do it again I'd specify a different orientation during manufacture, so that the ridges ended up circular. They're not all that visible after painting

 

I'm impressed.
Did you keep the 3D plan? Or did you say you would change it if you made another?

 

I still have the 3D model, although I think the method of fitting to the shaft could be improved. Did you want to get one for yourself, Ken?
--
Mike