Any thought to making the shafts out of maraging steel? This is a
"space age" material or "super alloy" that has the very desirable
property of being able to be heat treated at something like 400 degrees
fahrenheit which virtually eliminates distortion or size changes. We
used it at G&L to machine the "fingers" used for the tool holders, which
had rather complex and precise geometry. After machining the heat
treating left the parts as they were with the tolerances intact. The
finished product was very tough with excellent mechanical properties.
One problem - it's expensive stuff or it used to be. I did have some
"prototype tools" made up by the R&D machinists which just happened to
work really well on one or another of my cars. Great stuff.
Just a thought,
Tim
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