So, maybe not strictly a tooltime topic but it does relate to USING tools so I thought it was appropriate.
Anyways, doing some tinkering at home and I need to file down some aluminum surfaces to get everything toleranced. Basically, they are cylinders 19.5mm diameter x 13mm tall which I need to take 3mm off the height of. Managed to get one done pretty good using my eye and my hand on a big [censored] file and cleaning up with a ceramic sharpening stone. Had a very hard time keeping the working surface square and even. I suspect that due to imperfect pressure using my hands to hold everything it tended to file/grind/abrade unevenly. I also tried using my grinder on the flat side of the wheel which was much quicker and easier.
Any suggestions for keeping everything square? Its too small to mount up, and I can't really see a jig design that would work...
Anyways, doing some tinkering at home and I need to file down some aluminum surfaces to get everything toleranced. Basically, they are cylinders 19.5mm diameter x 13mm tall which I need to take 3mm off the height of. Managed to get one done pretty good using my eye and my hand on a big [censored] file and cleaning up with a ceramic sharpening stone. Had a very hard time keeping the working surface square and even. I suspect that due to imperfect pressure using my hands to hold everything it tended to file/grind/abrade unevenly. I also tried using my grinder on the flat side of the wheel which was much quicker and easier.
Any suggestions for keeping everything square? Its too small to mount up, and I can't really see a jig design that would work...