The problem: Align the holes in a part with plastic flat plate that should go underneath. The workshop I have access is very modest. No fancy CNCs, no DROs, the machines are small. Luckily the plastic plate fitted in the drill press, otherwise I would need to use the hand-held drill to poke the holes.
My plan: Use a joint alignment pin (commonly used in woodworking), to indent the holes position in the plastic board, drill the holes with the drill press, hammer the pins in, go to town and have some beers.
The flaw in my plan: The holes in the part has a unusual dimension (5.35mm) and the shank in the commercially available joint alignment pin has always full numbers dimensions (4, 6, 8 mm).
My workaround: machine the shank in the lathe to my number.
The problem with the workaround: I would need to hold the part by a very thin tab.
I don't now exactly how to call this, but I found in the internet as joint alignment pins
I found out that the collet holds this well enough to machine it. The problem is that even in the collect this is not easy to align. If super precision was required I could use the dial indicator, but the part doesn't needed to be super precise. So, here comes my quick and dirt solution to this case. I used the tailstock chuck to hold the shank, pulled the tailstock close to the headstock, and this way inserted the part in the collet.
Using the tailstock to insert the part aligned in the collet
Voilà, we're ready to make some chips
Well that's a trick useful only for very specific operations, but anyway, something to keep in mind.
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