I'm going to turn a knob out of aluminum this morning in my schools shop, my car isn't here and I don't know the Dia. of the shaft. Help Please?
~Ross

1/2 of an inch - I THINK.

I am trying to remember what I used when I turned mine.

Zach

Are you going to attach it with the crush sleeve, or some other way? If using the crush sleeve, you want the ID of the stock ball, and not the OD of the stalk.

Zach

The shift lever is .600". The hole in a stock knob is .655" and uses a crush sleeve to make it fit the shaft. Be sure and show us pictures of your shift knob when done!

Yeah! The price of information is pictures!

When's mine going to be ready?

Here it is
~Ross

Just kidding, that last one was my practice piece to try free-handing the edges. Here is the real knob.
Eventually I'm going to laser etch either the Porsche logo or the shift pattern onto the top. Input? Maybe put some o-rings into grooves in the vertical part of the knob?

~Ross

I like it. Nice work.

I'm curious how long something like that took to turn? I know nothing about using my baby-lathe, but it seems like everything takes me forever.

I'd say about an hour, but I was going really slow and being careful. It was a nice big lathe too. drilling and tapping the set screw took about ten minutes being careful on a mill.
~Ross

Looks good Ross. Like I said before, when's mine going to be ready? JK

You need a CNC lathe mark. I can hook you up. We can run those off in about 4 minutes each with that !

Nice design on the knob BTW. Laser etching on aluminum can be nice or really bad. We do a fair amount of it at work and the edges can get kinda fuzzy sometimes. Bring it to a trophy shop and have it engraved, they can ink the logo with engravers die, stays on a long time.

That really sounds like the best option, thanks for the suggestion.
~Ross

My heart says YES, but my wallet says NO!

Great work !!! I like the shift pattern logo ......... that way the valet knows where everything is .....

I actually like the first one, it just needs finishing and the ding on the collar fixed.

I don't trust set screws on aluminum (or nearly anything else for that matter). Why not use the crush washer and not have the screw visible?

It is good work. I can turn wood, but I would love to learn to turn metal.

Zach

The knob looks pretty nice. Good Job!

I would chuck it up and polish out the lathe marks. I would use emery cloth with some oil. Set the lathe for a fairly high speed. I would also give it a clear coat when finished. You will find that Aluminum will turn your hand black with use.

go rub one out.
polish the knob.
buff the ball.


they will go from looking good to looking amazing when polished.

Zach

Polishing and clear coat are next on my list, I have no use for the smaller ball if you would like it Zach. i went with a set screw for two reasons, first the crush washer is missing on my car and second i feel like my shift lever has been cut off already by about an inch, not sure why. now the question is whether to go with the aluminum knob I made or to keep the lacquered polished cherry wood knob I made. Pictures of the wooden one to follow.
~Ross

Scratch that on the cut shaft, I just took a closer look at it and there are imperfections that are chromed that I took to be cut marks at a quick glance. Here are some pics of the wooden knob.

Thanks for the offer on the aluminum ball. I actually already have an aluminum knob that I am not using.

I made this one last year and love it too much to change.


Post pics of the knob post polishing. Its going to look amazing.

Zach

If you fix and polish the small round knob, I bet you would be able to sell it and recoup all of your materials costs. When I made the wood knobs, the sale of one knob bought the materials to make 15 more. I made 5, kept the first one for myself and sold off the other 4 to fund my car hobby. I still have 10 blanks made that I never turned - no time but I hope to get back to then after I am done with grad school.

You do nice work. if you have the time, you might be able to turn a 1 off hobby into a little car cash.

Zach

that's not a bad Idea, but I feel bad about selling something that I don't feel is quality work myself. Plus I think the hole in the bottom is the wrong diameter. Oh well, polished pics are soon to come.
~Ross