Thumbscrews for for 7x10/14/16 Minilathe Gearbox cover

thingiverse

These are knobs for thumbscrews to make it easier to install and remove the change gear cover on my Homier 7x16 Minilathe. To make these, I printed them in PLA with the threaded hole facing up. This hole hole has modeled threads, but depending on your printer's tolerances and tuning you may have to drill and tap the holes for M5-0.8. (I did). Each thumbscrew requires a piece of M5-0.8 threaded rod 50 mm long. [McMaster-Carr 93805A636](https://www.mcmaster.com/93805A636) would work, but I was able to source threaded rod locally at a significantly lower cost (Ace Hardware - Midwest Fastener Brand, 100mm $1.95). The threaded rod is permanently affixed to the handle with Loctite Blue 242. Other adhesives would also work, e.g. epoxy, The 242 is what I had at hand. Small parts printed with FDM may deform if your printer is too fast to allow sufficient cooling between layers. This is visible in the picture above as a wavy deformation in the print. Reducing the print speed addresses this issue. The attached .pdf is a drawing noting the dimensions if you'd like to reproduce this in another material. (Turned brass would be pretty.)