To my pleasure that drilling went perfectly. I just ran the program twice. The second ring just fell into jaws in perfect position. No need to rezero.
Then I discovered how slow it is to tap cold rolled steel. I have tapped thin steel before and aluminum and acetal and even white oak (which worked better than you might think). But I need to tap a 1.38" deep hole. It is slow and the danger of breaking a tap is always an encouragement to go slow. Yes I am using TapMagic.
I broke a tap in a piece of aluminum yesterday and to my surprise I managed to unscrew from the workpiece. I have thrown away more than a couple workpieces with broken taps that were never going to come out.
I suddenly asked myself if there is a sharper tap out there. Solid carbide taps apparently cut much faster so I ordered one.
While the outer edge of these rings is still not as nicely finished as I would like, I was able to face the rings pretty easily. Much easier than I was expecting. I have turned very little steel on my lathe. Unfortunately I am out of sandpaper that has not been used up so tomorrow I will buy stuff from #80 to #500. I want the surfaces smooth and beautiful even though I will be epoxying the rings together.
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