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Metal workers, how do I do this?

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Trimoor:
I am considering buying a metal leith, and I was wondering how hard it would be to make some metaly joystick handles.

It looks easy enough, but how would I handle the curves?
How would I make it easy to repeat?

Can spinner knobs be made easily?
How would I make vertical grooves like arkanoid or tron?

Thanks!

Snarbald:
Unless you're planning on getting a cnc lathe, you can make the top of the handle rounded by using a toolbit with the profile of the radius milled out of it or you could just eye it with a file (actually now that I think about, the file is proabably the better of these two ways).

Mameotron:
In keeping with thw whole BYO spirit, you might try building your own foundry and casting the metal parts you want.  This site has LOTS of books on the subject.

http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks/foundry/index.html

Or, BYO plastic injection molding machine and make plastic joystick parts.

http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/inject/index.html

danny_galaga:
making a curved shape will be hard unless its cnc. but spinners will be quite possible. youll be using a knurling tool for that. vertical grooves will probably need to be done on some sort of mill set-up. but if you have lined up a metal lathe and its pretty cheap, id say still get it because you will find all sorts of things you can make on it. good luck!

pcates:

--- Quote from: Trimoor on October 09, 2004, 01:42:28 am ---I am considering buying a metal leith, and I was wondering how hard it would be to make some metaly joystick handles.

It looks easy enough, but how would I handle the curves?
How would I make it easy to repeat?

Can spinner knobs be made easily?
How would I make vertical grooves like arkanoid or tron?

Thanks!
--- End quote ---
Has anyone actually been making their own joystick handles/shafts? I had never considered that this would be possible with a home setup.

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