Treadhead coming up

It’s been a little disorganized around the shop the past couple months and I’ve been behind on my drops but better later than never.

This is one of the three versions I started about 2 months ago. It’s the middle one in the photo. This one varies only in the tread like pattern around the circumference that has alternating grooves. It has kind of been my favorite but it ended up on the bottom of the list and didn’t get processed, patina’d and stonewashed with the rest of them.

The finish will be different than what the pictures show. The patina will remain the same as its my favorite. I won’t be offering a blaster version but instead I will offer a polished one. If you still want a blasted version, just email me. The new tumbler does an amazing job of deburing as well as polishing. With brass I’ve been able to achieve a mirror finish and remover 90% or more of the tool marks.

This group of beads was born out of the original X1 design. Also called the Blue Crush, Black Knight etc. What I’ve done is taken out the center section of the X1 and re designed the ends. From there it got a deeper center groove, different chamfer profile and then came the longitudinal grooves… I bought a small milling machine in the hopes of turning it into a CNC mill. The process isn’t that difficult and there are plenty of kits and plans online. It does however take time, more space and another PC to run it. Time and space is limited here. Instead I set it up with my dividing head and have been manually cutting the grooves and then finishing them in the CNC lathe.

There’s something about operating a manual mill or lathe that still speaks to me. Maybe it’s the laser focus required, or the hand dials that become butter smooth after break in, or maybe it’s how quiet they are. No matter, fun or not it’ll be a thing of the past once the new CNC machine is set up and running. Cycle times should be lower, accuracy should go up and capabilities will be far better than anything I can do manually. It’s been a long wait but I’m still very excited!

When the new machine is set up, my crazy designs can come to life! I’ve got pry bars, bit drivers, locking quick releases, and so many different beads. My limitations will be tooling and materials cause this thing will eat up some metal!

I’ll keep you folks posted as progress moves along.

-Dustin