you say BILLET I say______? TECH!!!!

DrJ Here ya go bro.

 

So where's the TECH?!

I wanna make me some BILLET something now........

 

Ok here's some handmade "Billet" Only machine tools are woodworking ones.Tablesaw, drillpress with holesaw, router and beltsander and loose buff with red compound.
I wanted to replace the ugly rubber seal on my 60 Brookwood wagon. I had a chunk of 5/8ths aluminum that I found at the recyclers.I copied the shape , drilled and counterdrilled the bolt holes and tapped them for 1/4 in socket head bolts.Then I split the halves on the tablesaw and then bolted the two halves back together. Centerpunched and holesawed where the column goes through.Once it was the basic shape then I sanded the edges and faces till they were smooth and the part line was gone. Then I used a 3/8 in radius roundover carbide router bit to radius the edge. A little more sanding with some 220, then 400 then the red compound on the buff wheel.

 

Cool job Jethro. I made a brake lever for my motorcycle the same way. Jigsaw, hacksaw, hand files, emery paper and sweat.
And now everybody asks me where I bought it!!!!

 

Steel can be billet, and BILLET, also...

I had a leaky thermostat gasket... bolts were a tad too long... as I dug my hand into my bag full of fender washers, I thought... these will look like *** on top of my engine.

So I got a bunch of 3/8th washers together on a 3/8 bolt and snugged em down with a nut, Added a second nut, and bam-o, I had a lathe mandrel.

chucked it in my Halbol Flate mini-rathe, turned those washers down to slightly larger than the 9/16th head on the bolt... now the washers on my thermo-housing look all blingy and billet, cause they're shiny as hell and they have sharp 90 degree edges, but the cool thing about em...

They'll rust soon!