Recently I discovered an easier and painless (literally) method of making some of the small bushings required on an RV build. Previously on another step I used a band saw to cut to size and tried to hold the small pieces with my hands, or shop towels while grinding. This often resulted in fiunger burns, non-symmetrical pieces and a number of times parts flying around my garage when I lost grip on the wheel.
While working on the flap section which requires four bushings I devised another way to create these and posted it on my build log. Surprisingly someone actually reads that and suggested that I post on VAF as a tip. Hope others find value and I'll start with the finished product;
To start I replaced using the band saw with a small pipe cutter. This was much easier than using the band saw. You can line it up exactly to your mark and it comes out straight and doesn't heat the piece up at all. If the part is long enough you can rotate it with your hand, if it's not you can use a set of vice grips and rotate it with those.
You end up with a rough cut bushing that will require a bit of finishing work. You'll want to clean the base of the bushing by just putting it on a pair of vice grips (Lightly, don't mark it up... or use tape) and just run it against the flat part of a grind wheel. This is also the time to size the bushing, I personally use a HF micrometer that cost around $8. Depending on how much you grind off you'll want the part fairly cool when you measure it.
After deburring the inside you'll want to round out the edges a bit. You can in essence use the AN bolt as a lathe and push it against the grind wheel at an angle. This spins the piece and puts a consistent rounding around the entire part.
I'm really happy with the way these turned out and the lack of injuries and the time saved searching around my garage floor for little parts that flew off the wheel. Happy building!
Tip: Making Bushings
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