Machining brake pins

Two new volunteers, Alberto and John, started machining brake rigging pins from a large piece of tool steel yesterday. Alberto is a retired machinist. He's a welcome addition to the machine shop. John, who's the son of board member Bill Rodgers, is a local contractor.

The first step was to cut the bar stock into workable lengths on the Racine power hack saw.

The blade and stock are cooled with a mixture of water and oil. Typical of any operation, Sam and Alberto had to unplug the cooling line before operating the saw yesterday.

Machining the tool steel into a pin.


All that needs to be done now is to cut the pin off of the excess stock. To save stock, Alberto is going to turn the piece around and mill a second pin on the stock.