Great Job! I would love to see some photos of the tips mods. Are they convertible between fixed and bearing similar to how I mod them?
Yes, the convertible tip "design" (as Bryan wrote) is not mine but stolen by me from Spinningray.
http://www.topspinning.com/toptalk/viewpost.php?post=9911Thanks for all the ideas you've shared with us.
Assembly pictures will be added when I see Bryan again since he is my go-to guy for posting pix. (I was on the clock and had to go do some real work while he posted the original--hence the lack of credit to Spinningray initially.)
One difference is that for fixed mode Spinningray's nut anchors the tip by contacting the body of the top while ours contacts the outer race of the inside bearing. I wasn't worried about the bearings spinning in their seats since our machinist was able to make a nice press fit on the tops where the bearing initially didn't fit, and I secured the bearings in the originally oversized pockets with thick partially dried finger nail polish (easy to remove with acetone from the metal tops and not runny at all so it doesn't flow onto the balls). Although the surface area contact with the small outer race is rather minimal, I haven't noticed any slipping problems doing RCS. Our nuts are Delrin because I like the way a tapped hole in Delrin tends to collapse on the inner diameter giving a nice tight fit to the die cut threads (10-32). The tips are stainless steel since the original brass tips had several problems such as the diameter match to the top body was poor, the step to contact only the inner bearing race was not long enough to avoid contact between the main part of the tip and the body of the top, and on several the 'play' portion of the tip was not concentric with the axle which created a fair amount of wobble.
I'd also like to point out the 'clean' body look was previously presented by Eric and Spinningray. I did all the body work on a lathe with files. Clearing all the steps was a little tedious since this aluminum alloy is extremely soft and quickly loads the files, but rounding off the sharps at the steps and at the joint between the cap and base and wiping out the tool marks is not bad and well worth the trouble. After polishing, those first few new dings and scratches really stand out though.
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Here a picture of our quicksilver convertible tip--thanks Bryan.