Home made DZUS fasteners

Home brew ***DZUS fasteners***.

Hi All,

Got a mini-lathe and now producing my own home brew DZUS fasteners.

Specification: http://www.dfcis.com/pa-3500/pfsc.html

Here's "how to" and see attached pictures.

1. Insert 12 mm rod of aluminium, face it with left hand tool, turn it back from 12 (could not get 10 mm alas) to 9.53.. mm, drill 4 mm hole in it for the length of 2 fasteners so about 22 mm (7,24 + 7,24 + 2 x thickness of parting tool), insert radius tool (2 mm radius) in toolclamp and make radius, change 4 mm drill to 7,5 mm drill, drill hole of exactly 2mm deep (here the nut fits in), insert parting tool and part.

2. Here it starts all over, except the drilling of the 4 mm hole: was done for 2 fasteners in one procedure.

3. Afterwards insert the 2 newborn fasteners in the claw and cut off the remnants from the parting prodedure. After collecting several fasteners this can be done somewhat faster, of course).

Time per fastener about 9 minutes, so expect some work...:-).

Hessel Oosten

Looks real cool. What kind of mini lathe do you have?

A nice bit of turning there, can i ask if your using a hand ground parting tool or a carbide one? The reason is i noticed the parted off edge is slightly burred up, a good tip is just before your job breaks off, wind the parting tool clear and carefully hold a "v" file on the groove, it helps put a nice chamfer on the back edge too ;)

Crescent, (Is that your name ?),

It's a 7 x 12 " lathe, so the typical hobby machine.

Lots of info here:

http://www.mini-lathe.com/
http://www.lathes.co.uk/index.html
A quick-change-toolpost is "a must".

Steve,

Thanks for the great suggestion.
Parting tool was HSS.
Like this kind of critics: It makes things going better !
The real ones have indeed a slight chamfer too, at the lower side.

Hessel

Great work Hessel, those look really nice.

I managed to make mines in acrylic with a CNC time ago. I think that I could have made them from a solid aluminium sheet as well, but as those are mockups and will be painted in the panel colour I won't notice the difference. I made about 60 in 1 1/2 hrs so something more then one minute for each. I also used the very same drawing you pointed to.

A lathe anyway is in my plans. It helps so much with all the precision circle jobs. Great to make knobs that actually I do with CNC with lot of efforts.

Hi Vincenzo,

Thanks for this comment.

Indeed you are right, they *can also be made from acryic* by using the CNC mill.

But ... I did fell in love ... with aluminium (amongst others ....:-) and try to make most parts (where reasonably possible) like the real one's.
I think the top edge is with aluminium a little sharper.
This is also the place for later tear and wear and dissappearing of the paint.
I like than to see the metal appearing again ...

Another **cheap way of making them*:

1. Cut pieces from a 10 mm hollow aluminium pipe and accept and the 0,47 mm to much thickness William Boeing has teached us ...or sand it down in the home drilling machine.
2. Put the parts in your home drill and sand or file also a small radius during this turning operation.
3. Put/Glue a nut in the bottom to keep the central bold in place.

And last: What a BEAUTIFULL site do you have !!!
http://www.learjet45.info/

Hessel

p.s. Hmm, last year I visited Pompei/LIRN, if had known that ...

Thanks Hessen for the compliments and your interesting tutorials... :-) And yes, all of us are a bit maniacal with details in building our cockpit. I take about 2 weeks to make a single panel because I want that everything looks perfect even in parts where nothing is clearly visible. Details... that's what make a good replica in my opinion.

Next time you'll come to LIRN give me a call, I'll take you around for a nice tour of our area :-)

Steve,

You asked / commanded ...., I did ... (pic attached).
(and did all 80 from before ...).

:-) :-) :-)

Hessel

LOL :) Perfect... I'm not in the trade anymore but before i worked on cnc's and just programmed and pushed buttons, I stood for usually about 10 hours a day churning out zillions of components.. on old capstan lathes. I would love my own hobby engineering workshop now. :mrgreen: