Thread: Undream's 30 second Pivot Hole Sleeves

I'm sure some of you have done pivot pin sleeves made out of brass tubing before to get those big old sheffield blades swingin' smoothly. Its kinda hard to get that little tube cut into the right size though, ain't it? Well.. here is my method I developed over the last 6 months. I can make a sleeve in about 30 seconds.

What you need:

* 1/16" rod
* 1/16" inner diameter / 3/32" outer diameter brass tube
* Disc sander (or a sheet of sandpaper if you want to make it a 10 minute pivot hole sleeve)
* wire cutters

STEP 1: GET SOME TUBING! most of the time, tubing is always pinched from the last cut, right?



STEP 2: Get rid of the pinch!





STEP 3: Cut off appoximately double the tang width. Its gonna pinch again. d'oh!





STEP 5: Heres my trick! take some of your 1/16 rod, and just slip that little nub onto it!



STEP 6: Take it back to the sander, and sand off that pinch!

TADA!#@!@#!@



Who knows..maybe you guys are already doing something similar. But, if you're not, then, maybe this will help some of you out!!

-Brad

Nice pics and tutorial.

There's many roads that lead to Rome.

I use the 10 seconds method.

A very fine jewelers saw. Never a pinch either cause you don't have use a cutter. Always perfect and easy to eyeball when choosing your desired length.

Exactly -- lots of ways to do the same thing... I found a way to do it with what I had, and, it works!

-Brad

I am doing it with Dremel cutting wheel, but the same concept.

That is a clever method, always nice to have another idea in my toolbox.

I personally put a small peice of tubing into the keyless chuck in my dremel, turn it on and hold a cutting disk to the spinning tube.

Does it ever fly across the workbench and get lost forever when you finish the cut? lol

I think its cool that people have come up with so many ways to do the same thing.

Originally Posted by TheBaron

That is a clever method, always nice to have another idea in my toolbox.

I personally put a small peice of tubing into the keyless chuck in my dremel, turn it on and hold a cutting disk to the spinning tube.

I use a catcher under my bench motor. Just a cardboard box on a bucket. Its great for catching expensive things that cant be dented or bent or not losing anything.

When catcher has too much buffing dust or metal bits I just use a shopvac to clean it. If I am going to be cutting off something small I will probably clean it first, makes it easier to find piece.

Originally Posted by Undream

Exactly -- lots of ways to do the same thing... I found a way to do it with what I had, and, it works!

If there were a sticky for shop rules, this should be the first one. Otherwise we get off on a chase for "the perfect tool" and never get any real work done with perfectly serviceable equipment we already had. Plus, if you had "the perfect tool" and it broke, you can rapidly work around the problem.

Good job Brad.

I use a dremel disc cutter too, but still get a burr that has to be ground-off against the sander. I never thought of inserting the 1/16 rod while doing it though - doh! - seems obvious now you have shown the process so well.

Maybe I'll try cutting the tubing with a bit of rod in place, too...

Regards,
Neil

PS: I found a model engineers tube cutter for miniature tubes online... if anyone else is thinking of buying one it leaves terrificly large burrs (ie it turns over the pipes edges) on both sides of the cut that then have to be ground off...