Bar Clamps Build Process

18/5/2021

Once all the parts had received a coat of primer and two coats of paint, I removed everything from the paint stands and took the split nuts off the screw jaw frames.

Having thought a bit more about the method of attaching the split nuts, it occurred to me that if I tidy up the outer face of the split nuts on the lathe (rather than leaving a hacksawn finish) and then try to do four tack welds to join them to the threaded rod, it will probably look quite good (if I can do neat looking tack welds, which isn't that easy) and will provide plenty of strength (the join is just there to stop the nut unscrewing and there's not much chance of that happening once the thread has been melted by the TIG torch).

To clean up the faces of the nuts, I put an offcut of threaded rod into the three-jaw chuck on the lathe. Each split nut could then be faced and the edge chamfered.

To simplify the process of attaching the earth clamp to the threaded rod, I cut a couple of the sides of a spare bit of box section and clamped it to the bench drill's table. I put the earth clamp on the box section and could then hang each threaded rod (with a temporarily attached nut) from the box section.

From there it was just a case of hand tightening onto the feeler gauge pieces as before and doing four quick tack welds. This puts much less heat into the bearing area than the full weld did.

With the welds all complete, they could be given a coat of primer and two coats of paint, this time using a brush (carefully: holding the brush still and turning the thread). This photo shows one after one coat of primer has been done; I'll do the paint coats over the next couple of days. A little primer got on one or two of the bearing washers, but it doesn't matter too much and I may be able to carefully scrape it off when the painting is all done.

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