NASA ACES suit disconnects

[alexbailey]

Absolutely polish before anodizing. The anodizing will not polish, so if you want the pieces to look shiny I would polish. The buttons will likely want to be matte.

I'll have a go polishing them. I agree that the buttons should be matte, certainly look that way on the reference photos.

 

[alexbailey]

Here's a first go at some polishing.
Bearing ring polished, rest of the assembly had some scotch-brite used on it to clean up some of the machining marks.
As far as I'm concerned it was successful, I will only polish the visible surfaces, seem a bit pointless to polish something that will be covered up.

 

[lmgill]

We finish everything to mirror finish before anodizing. You will also want a much bigger radius on the clam ring.

 

[joberg]

Soooo beautifully made

 

[alexbailey]

We finish everything to mirror finish before anodizing. You will also want a much bigger radius on the clam ring.

I am now planning on polishing before anodising. Where do you think the radius should be larger?

 

[lmgill]

I am now planning on polishing before anodising. Where do you think the radius should be larger?

The suit / fabric clamp ring, OD. (I can't see the ID)
One thing I have learned from making this hardware, is the edge radii are always larger than they look.

 

[antarusfree]

I am now planning on polishing before anodising. Where do you think the radius should be larger?

Yeah, Imgill is reffering to the mounting ring. The OD and ID are the same. From the looks I would also suggest to make the radius larger. Maybe 2x larger than in my model.

 

[alexbailey]

Yeah, Imgill is reffering to the mounting ring. The OD and ID are the same. From the looks I would also suggest to make the radius larger. Maybe 2x larger than in my model.

The suit / fabric clamp ring, OD. (I can't see the ID)
One thing I have learned from making this hardware, is the edge radii are always larger than they look.

Many Thanks both

I have done some work to make the radius larger as suggested, definitely improved.

 

[alexbailey]

A polishing update, I've purchased a better buffing compound, certainly improved the process.

 

[joberg]

Yep, there's a notable difference with that new compound

 

[alexbailey]

Yep, there's a notable difference with that new compound

Indeed, made the process a lot quicker and improved the finish.

 

[alexbailey]

A polishing update only one main part to go.

 

[joberg]

Cor Blimey Those are...jewels

 

[antarusfree]

WOW

 

[Funky]

Those are gorgeous!!!

 

[alexbailey]

WOW

Those are gorgeous!!!

Thank you

 

[alexbailey]

Polishing is now finished, some areas to improve, however I think they turned out well.

 

[joberg]

Gorgeous workmanship

 

[alexbailey]

Here's some photo showing the installation of the spring and grub screws into the locking tabs, a little fiddly but not as bad as I expected the worst part was tapping the M2 thread in the locking tab, I didn't enjoy doing that, thankfully the parts were all okay.

Step 1 insert the grub screw the place the spring into the slot keeping the grub screw below the surface.
Step 2 slide the locking tab into position with the hole and the grub screw are in line.
Step 3 tighten the grub screw so that the locking tab slides freely and doesn't fowl on the bottom of the slot.

Here from the inside you can just make out the grub screw visible.

Whole setup works really well, once again many thanks to antarusfree for his excellent CAD modelling without whom this wouldn't have been possible.

 

[joberg]

Kudos for antarusfree and your workmanship, detail oriented machine skills made it a work of high quality