I finally made some real progress on the eccentric staircase! Unfortunately, the disks are larger than I would have liked, but it can’t be helped.
I started turning my second attempt in brass, and although brass is easier to machine and the part was smaller, the parting blade was still visibly bending and I felt that it would break sooner or later.
I ended up switching to the carbide insert parting blade. This tool is significantly more rigid and experienced zero bend when I used it. Unfortunately, it is quite a bit shorter than the HSS parting blade and because of this, I needed to bring in the stock and make my eccentric staircase less eccentric. This resulted in larger disks, which I’m not too thrilled with, but I don’t see any other way to make this part, so I guess I’ll need to live with it.
Even half-finished, I still think it looks pretty cool. I think that even if the part doesn’t come out how I’d initially planned, it’ll still be an overall success.
I also helped clean a little and started taking apart some old sumo-bots. I don’t think any of the juniors or seniors are particularly attached to their sumo-bots, so Mr. Christy tasked me with disassembling them and salvaging the parts.