diamond tooling/G11 was Re: motor winder in dallas

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

>
> Had a sec and was re-reading your note and see you have milling equipment
> available. Do you work with G11 and/or aluminum? One of my 1st. projects
> once I get moved in is to build a rotary spark gap and I need to find a
> decent machinist that can work with G11. Understand that it requires
> diamond-tipped tools to work with the stuff. I also need an aluminum ring
> (about 12" outer diameter x .25" thick (9" inner diam.)) fabricated,
> mounted to the G11 disk and balanced. Does this sound like something along
> the lines of your expertise? I'm only interested in hiring your services;
> Not looking for any freebies.
>

Carbide works ok... HSS (high speed steel) goes dull in a hurry.  Just
remember you are basically cutting glass, which is pretty hard and abrasive.
If you have diamond tools, great, but they're not necessary.  If you are
working with steel tools, get ready to do a lot of sharpening: tedious, but
entirely practical.  And, use lots of lube/coolant or you'll finish with a
lot more backlash and play in the  ways and lead screws  than you started
with.