Fundamentals of Machine Shop Operations

I took a machine shop operations class in the fall of 2023. In it, I learned a lot about machining and designed and created my own truck and dice. 

For the dice, I needed to make a less than 1 inch cube within 2 thousandths of an inch out of brass round. The cube also had to be square when checking it against a machinist square. It was an interesting challenge to have to take something round and machine it to be square, but I learned a lot in the process. In the end my cube was 1 inch in all dimensions to a couple ten-thousandths of an inch. After making the cube, I had to polish it to a mirror finish and add chamfers and the dice features.

The truck consisted of 3 parts, the main body, the wheels, and the axles. I was given a basic drawings and stock for each and could make modifications wherever I desired. I decided to make my truck a box van rather than the standard pickup truck and changed nearly every dimension. The few required features were a pocket on the top of the main body perfectly fit to the dice and reamed wheel hubs and counterbores for the axles. The wheels were machined out of black delrin. I decided to knurl them to give them a tire-like texture. The axles were turned down from stainless steel rod to fit the holes in the truck body and press fit into the wheels.