January 15, 2016
I have this mini lathe center set that came in a small box that unfortunately is falling apart now so I decided to design and print a case for it. This way it is protected and hopefully won't start rusting as fast. The cover slips down from the top so it pretty much seals the parts in. I have made an allowance to make sure it can also be take off easily but still stay in place.
This is the box and tools I started with.
My first design.
The first one needed some minor changes in order for the live center to sit correctly.
On the second one I noticed I needed more clearance for the dead center pieces. It was a bit tight in order to get to them and a bit too low. While I was taking a closer look at this one I decided to make a bit more room so that I could also place my drill chuck in here as it seem to fit in the same spot. This way I could have a way to keep the one not being used instead of just laying it around. I ended up making the back longer and moving that bull nose area a bit more. This gave me more spacing for the dead centers and also easier access to the center and chuck. As you can see I took out most of that material out too. The chuck is also taller so I had to adjust for that as well.
It took three changes but I finally got a working case. The last case alone took about 13 hours to print. The first I think was about 10 and second about 12. Now I'm printing the cover. I'm really happy with this case because it's durable and should keep these parts nicely organized. You can see I threw the bull nose tool and chuck key in here too. This is the harbor freight chuck number 42340. The body is about 42 mm wide. This is the smaller version of the 1/2 inch chucks, but still a 1/2 inch chuck.
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