Custom Billet Shift Knob for Toyota Tacoma (2-1/4" diameter). ***Utilizes factory boot.***

Is the bottom left Ti?

 

Nup, that is Delrin under natural lighting.

 

Oh I see now. Looks great.

 

Aaand a few for the autos. Added these to the OP as samples. Wanted a TRDOR knob up there, but I don't have a clear shot of one.

 

Can’t wait till mine shows up . They look amazing .

 

Your photography skillz have improve measurably over the past 18 months...nice work

Reminds me of this

 

The trick is to hand over the phone and let some random infant dial it in for you (on IG). That is the improvements you are seeing.

 

I see mine! Cant wait to start touching it on a daily basis! Finally my Taco will have better knob than wife's Civic Si.

 

That's what I do when I set up to machine something.

 

There are professionals out there like this, too. We call ours George. His headstone will probably read something like this "BRUTE FORCE AND IGNORANCE".

 

Shit! So, I had a future in metalworking and didn't know it. It might not have been a bright future, but there is always a place for a dim bulb.


Whenever you say George, I hear it like:

 

He is a lot like that, except looks like an older/fatter metalhead version of Alan Rickman.

 

Not quite metal, but:





Ooooh, wait:

 

Haha, the guy is good don't get me wrong. Lots of experience, but lives on the edge of what most would call unsafe.

When we got our new knee mills, all brand new tooling. He tried to tap 1/2-13" into steel using a brand new Jacobs Super Ball Bearing drill chuck. There are special collets for this, but he's just George and goes for easy-mode. The tap spun in the drill chuck as any novice would know, I watched him back it out and just try to ram in in there harder ... which I'll give him it went farther before it spun again.

After that, the jaws on that brand new drill chuck were bellmouthed. I ordered another one, and he destroyed that in less than a week doing whatever.

Put him in front of a manual lathe though, and he will find how big of a cut you can take with it.

Even on this monster (42" swing).


He cut his thumb off on a horizontal band saw about 5 years ago. He didn't want to wait for it so he held the stock and pushed down on the head to speed it up. Ooops.

 

I am laughing over here.


That's a bit more than living on the edge.


You guys call him George. I call him Cutter. Cutter likes it deep and fast. Thumbs be damned.

 

So I get pushing things to the limit, but there is a certain finesse that is required when doing so. I love to see how I can optimize material removal, especially doing lathe work. I don't just crank it in half an inch and let it rip. I am also guilty of running taps in a drill chuck, but never cinched down tight. I only do it to get the tap started straight with the spindle off, then back the chuck off.

People like your George end up being a liability. I realize he's probably a great dude, but he sounds like (evidenced by him cutting his thumb off already) a danger to himself, and worse a danger to others around him.

 

Oddly enough he is afraid to run the larger Bullard VTL (54" vertical lathe), and also fears even the smallest CNC lathes.

He's pretty good with conversational mills though. We only have Gcode machines, so I wrote him a bunch of custom Macro-B cycles. But we only let him touch the 21 yrs old Haas for obvious reasons.

 

G0 Z-50

It'll stop when it gets to the table. LOL!

 

Man. It has only been a year, and I have forgotten gcode.

 

I also do that with a drill chuck sometimes, but not with a coarse thread like that. I also would have either a spiral point or spiral flute, he was using a hand tap.

He really is dangerous, I won't go near him when he is working. I work for a huge corporation that takes safety to insane levels, but he is basically ignored. It's going to get middle management in serious trouble one day (with corporate).