wheel wheel wheel, aluminium

Well, I made a replacement in aluminium for the acrylic idle wheel of my makerbot.
After breaking two acrylic wheel, I decided to change the last “weak” part (cross finger).
I don’t have easy access to a lathe or CNC (for the moment, cross finger), so I decided to re-use my punk skills on doing hardware.
Actually, it worked pretty well.

1. draw two circles that correspond to this thing on a 5mm aluminium plate
2. drill the center with the biggest drill you have (12mm in my case)
3. use a half round ring file to expend the ring to your drawing (a Dremel to speed up)
4. cut the external ring using a jigsaw, goggles and safety gloves
5. reduce the external ring using a sand paper/grinder ribbon
6. paste the ball bearing in you piece of aluminium using a good glue (loctite)
7. insert a long M8 screw in the ball bearing and make is turn on the sand paper ribbon with an angle of 45°. After few turns, the piece should be round enough and well centered.

Punk’s not dead.