Tired of Brass Valve Stem posts?

Yeah, well I have another!  A couple of goofs were made but nothing major and are, hopefully, easily corrected. One was a seat that we cut at the top of the threads (base of the head) for the O-ring to sit in.  Hopefully a heavier O-ring of the same o.d. will fix that or I will be making new ones altogether.  This valve can't leak, if it does it spells disaster for a hollow wooden board!  The other was we just cut the head size too big.  Easily fixed.

First my dad made a seat that is held by the jaws of the lathe for the screws to screw into and be held while the head is cut.  Then

I cut the head to 5/16" (312/1000's) when they actually needed to be 1/4" (250/1000's) so after they were all cut, I just cut them again.  Not a problem.  So cutting the head down to size you cut bits off at a time and measure with Verneer Calipers in various ways.  Below I am using the depth gauge end of these really nice verneers that have a dial on them.  Quite easy to read!  My first reading is 44/1000's too big and the second is spot on at 312/1000's which is equal to 5/16's of an inch.  Of course, after all was done, I had to bring them down to 250/1000's -or- 1/4".

Here is the fatal flaw that we can hopefully remedy, the O-ring seat that was never meant to be!

And finally here is my dad setting up to put the slot in the threads, but I didn't get any pics of that as I didn't think about it while I was running the lathe. 

I'm promise that there will be another post about the valve stems!  Stay tuned!  Don't miss it!