I have a newfound appreciation for this part. At least… if I had a mill this would have taken 2 minutes. Maybe even if I had a band saw or something…
I tried using my mini lathe as a table saw, I do it for T track, but the discs were flexing under the 1/16 thick aluminum, so I resorted to using a rotary tool and abrasive discs. I suppose I could have used a hacksaw but I was already using one to section 1.9” pieces from my stock! I wanted something finer than blunt force…
So… it turns out, drilling holes and cutting, cutting from a sharpie line and square, or working your way up different cutting disc thicknesses…. If you waver at all it looks really bad. This slot is like.. a little over 2mm! And it has to be centered! My eyeball skills have been good to within 1-3mm so this just pushed my boundary. It took me 5 tries, on the 5th one, I got something good enough to put against my used disc sander and polish it up. The trick was to end with cylindrical diamond cutting bits and “mill” the slot to the right width!
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1) I grab trophies from thrift stores to get the threaded rods inside, I’m leftover with marble blocks that I solder on or something..
2) the slot is just the right size for a 0-80 screw, coincidence?