25 February 04
Drilling the dreaded shaft hole was threatening my sanity, until I came up
with an easy solution. I mounted the strut to the bottom to drill through, then
made an extension out of 1" cold rolled shafting. It's approx. 4'
long. A friend who has access to a metal lathe bored a 3/8" hole on one
end about 1" deep and turn down the other end to 1/2" diam. by an
inch long. I drilled and tapped 2 - 5/16" holes on the sides of the bored
hole for a Forstner bit (3/8 shank) for 2 set 5/16" Allen head set screws
and ground a couple relief's in the shank of the bit to secure the bit from
turning and loosing it in the bore. It took about 10 minutes to bore the hole
(started against a block) and it went straight and true. I used a lot of WD-40
for lube on the shaft bearing, and it worked great and cost $5 for shafting. So
there you have it - an easy way to do it and cheap!!!!!
.... Dwain
