The Machine Work Thread

[stioc]

I like making them so the ends are like .010 larger than the threads on the nut. It drives people more crazy thinking it went over the ends.

Haha, that's awesome!

 

[stioc]

Background if anyone finds it amusing-

I'm not sure why but gears are fascinating to me, perhaps it's all the math and theory that goes over my head makes it so. Also similar to single point threading it's sort of like a rite of passage, no? Anyway, so I wanted to try my hands at gear cutting but I didn't have the proper tooling you need to cut gears. I have a 8" rotary table but unless I feel like throwing my back out I usually leave it tucked away under the workbench. Besides I don't have the dividing plates for it either. I did order a $70 DP16 14deg gear cutter set last year. As with most things I took one or two out of the packaging, admired the feel and put them away. I didn't have an arbor for them. Then I got to thinking, hey my used mill did come with a spindexer which I never used...then I realized it was because I don't have a set of 5c collets. So you see like with most things I only have half-*** tooling. Similar to the gear cutters I had also ordered a single 1" 5c collet just so I can touch and feel one lol But here's where things started to come together.

Instead of wasting a few hours watching This Old Tony etc on youtube today I decided to tackle what I thought would be a small step towards gear cutting i.e. making an arbor for the gear cutters and an arbor for the 1" 5c collet to hold the gear blank. Well 6hrs later I had a test gear cut from start to end. Granted it's all aluminum but I was able to scratch the itch.

I decided to keep things simple, no keyway slot etc. I left the cutter a few thou proud of the flange/register so the nut would clamp it down.

Parting off the nut

Here's what the final product looks like

I made a similar arbor for the 5c collet and then cut a gear blank. Having never had to use the spindexer before I decied to check my math using scribe lines. I also decided to be lazy and just use 20 teeth - hey this is just an experiment.

Finally set the cutter height and hit the go pedal

All done - after 15mins of repetitive rotations and moving the table back and forth

Despite feeling beat from 6hrs of machining I was really pleased that even my half-assed plans and tooling came together better than I could've imagined

 

[MushCreek]

I want to do some gear cutting too. One of my future projects is to build a functional tower clock movement. A lifetime ago, I used to run a neat little gear hobbing machine. It amazed me how both the cutter and the gear blank rotated continuously, yet it machined a perfect straight cut gear. If you didn't set the gears right, it just milled the teeth right off.

 

[stioc]

It was a lot of fun even though the gear profile was all wrong because of the incorrect cutter and the blank diameter for the no. of teeth I chose. BTW, McMaster Carr carries all sorts of gears if you'd rather just focus on the project itself.

 

[davewo]

A dozen or so years ago I thought it would cool to make a very tiny "magic cube" (or whatever they are called). I made this on a Bridgeport milll with a 2-axis ProtoTrak control. I was making tiny parts at that time in my career. I don't think I have the same patience today.

 

[matt_i]

Looks like you're almost there. You need the Whole Depth for the tooth which is typically obtained from machining the OD of the blank to .001" size tolerance and then touching off on the OD, so then the infeed becomes the Whole Depth (sometimes you see W.D.).

 

[stioc]

Yeah, I had some time to look at the gear and the cutter yesterday. Looks like I only went in about half the depth that I needed to form the proper gear profile from the cutter. So instead of the .08" depth I should've been close to .16" depth of cut.

 

[stioc]

A dozen or so years ago I thought it would cool to make a very tiny "magic cube" (or whatever they are called). I made this on a Bridgeport milll with a 2-axis ProtoTrak control. I was making tiny parts at that time in my career. I don't think I have the same patience today.

Pretty cool!

 

[Griff93]

Make a couple of brake rotor hats for a customer's race car last week. These take bolt on style rotors like the circle track folks use.

2019-06-07_09-19-53 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2019-06-07_09-19-44 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2019-06-07_09-19-36 by Griffin93, on Flickr

2019-06-07_09-19-27 by Griffin93, on Flickr

 

[Bighead38]

Impressive. Does any heat from the rotors transfer to them? I wouldn’t think it would be much if it does.

What kind of race car?

 

[stioc]

Nice work on the rotor centers. Aluminum 6061? Also, what size is that lathe, 14" ?

 

[Griff93]

I don't know what kind of race car. Customer sent me a cad drawing and asked me to make them. I would imagine the aluminum would shed the heat that it would pick up from the hot rotor very well. Its 6061 material. The lathe is a 16x48 haas tl2. The part is 8 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick.

 

[stioc]

Very cool...thanks for sharing!

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Make a couple of brake rotor hats for a customer's race car last week. These take bolt on style rotors like the circle track folks use.

Awesome work!

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Knocked out a small fixture the other day for machining receivers from raw forgings. The plans came from Ray Branden (Google will get you to the plans), so he deserves the credit for a well done design. The material is 12"x3"x.500" 6061 aluminum. I think I used .500", .250", and .375" end mills. WD40 for lube. The angle finding cube (as seen in one of the pics) was used for setup for the 10° draft angle cut. This was kinda fun; for $3 I had a good time turning knobs. I need to buy more tooling to finish out a receiver, but maybe toward the end of the summer I'll try to get one done.

 

[kazlx]

Nice! Also super handy to throw counterbored holes for the vise. Then you can bolt them right into the Kurt.

 

[zmotorsports]

Knocked out a small fixture the other day for machining receivers from raw forgings. The plans came from Ray Branden (Google will get you to the plans), so he deserves the credit for a well done design. The material is 12"x3"x.500" 6061 aluminum. I think I used .500", .250", and .375" end mills. WD40 for lube. The angle finding cube (as seen in one of the pics) was used for setup for the 10° draft angle cut. This was kinda fun; for $3 I had a good time turning knobs. I need to buy more tooling to finish out a receiver, but maybe toward the end of the summer I'll try to get one done.

Very nice work.

 

[Balor]

Nice show and tell Bigblue&Goldie.

 

[Jim Johnstone]

couple items, first is a set of carb intake adapters for my son's honda gx160 go kart engine. It lets me use a K&N cone filter. second is a crankcase main bearing press tool for the same honda gx160 engines. finally I included a few snaps of an injection mold I was tasked to re-polish after the parts started showing some scratches.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

^Those intake stacks are awesome, what kind of machinery were they made on?^

 

[Jim Johnstone]

^Those intake stacks are awesome, what kind of machinery were they made on?^

turned on a chevalier cnc lathe and the holes punched in on a regular knee mill.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Jim Johnstone]

this is how the stacks look when installed on the engine.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[whateg01]

Man, nothing as flashy as the work above, but I did get a few parts finished for a friend who has to mount a laser scanner on a camera mount. Just some threaded bushings 3/8"-16 x 5/8"-11 with some slots and a driver in case they get stuck in the hole or on the screw.

All done on my manual 10ee and manual mill!

Dave

 

[stioc]

^ Pretty cool! it's always satisfying to see something come out as intended Didn't you also convert your RF30 to CNC? unless I'm thinking of someone else.

I finally got around to cutting the full profile on the gear I started with.

 

[mohead1]

Looks like a side case to a Harley Sportster lol



Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[matt_i]

Not very exotic but necessity drove the creation of a little low profile right angle fitting for greasing a stern drive's gimbal bearing...there could be off-the-shelf versions but I couldn't find it. The slide-on right angle fittings won't work in the counter-bore in the transom shield. I took apart the straight alemite coupler and found it was built with a .465"-32 thread inside, duplicate that part, drill & tap for 1/8NPT and we're cookin' with gas

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

The smaller the part, the more impressive! It's the little stuff that makes setups so hard for me.

 

[matt_i]

Well, the bearing driver tool wasn't far behind I made it in two pieces so it can store flat in a drawer...

 

[stioc]

Nice projects there. They don't have to be exotic, just the ability to make parts yourself is satisfying alone. Heck, I didn't even make any parts and I'm pretty stoked about what I accomplished this afternoon i.e. finally learned the importance of using proper feeds and speeds and surprised myself what my cheap mill/drill can actually do lol. Previously I was making what looked more like metal dust in comparison lol

A well used 1/2" HSS 4FL endmill, 1500 RPM, feed was 13 in/min, 1/2" DOC, .1" WOC, conventional milling...no sweat at all for the cheap mill/drill.
Bumped the WOC to .15" I could feel slight strain but still pretty good finish.
Bumped the WOC to .2" that's when it started squealing. All dry cutting aluminum.

This is side-milling of course, I'll have to figure out the slotting, which is always tough to do in aluminum because chips tend to weld themselves on to the cutter especially with the cutter being the same width as the slot and chip evacuation is an issue.

 

[930dreamer]

Anyone want to make this part from a Blackhawk S4 jack?

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Nice projects there. They don't have to be exotic, just the ability to make parts yourself is satisfying alone. Heck, I didn't even make any parts and I'm pretty stoked about what I accomplished this afternoon i.e. finally learned the importance of using proper feeds and speeds and surprised myself what my cheap mill/drill can actually do lol. Previously I was making what looked more like metal dust in comparison lol

A well used 1/2" HSS 4FL endmill, 1500 RPM, feed was 13 in/min, 1/2" DOC, .1" WOC, conventional milling...no sweat at all for the cheap mill/drill.
Bumped the WOC to .15" I could feel slight strain but still pretty good finish.
Bumped the WOC to .2" that's when it started squealing. All dry cutting aluminum.

This is side-milling of course, I'll have to figure out the slotting, which is always tough to do in aluminum because chips tend to weld themselves on to the cutter especially with the cutter being the same width as the slot and chip evacuation is an issue.

I use WD40 for lube on aluminum, which is common practice. For slots try going with a smaller diameter end mill and do a center cut and then do a pass on both sides of the slot to finished dimension. 1/2" depth of cut with a 1/2" end mill seems like a big bite on a mill drill, but I could be wrong. My experience with such machines is limited.

 

[ClappedOutBport]

I use WD40 for lube on aluminum, which is common practice. For slots try going with a smaller diameter end mill and do a center cut and then do a pass on both sides of the slot to finished dimension. 1/2" depth of cut with a 1/2" end mill seems like a big bite on a mill drill, but I could be wrong. My experience with such machines is limited.

This is good advice. Air blast or vacuum can help with chip evacuation. Roughers can help when you can't get enough rigidity, but chip evacuation becomes 10x more important. If you are through slotting, that can solve most problems with chip evacuation.

 

[Riggerson]

Anyone want to make this part from a Blackhawk S4 jack?

I sent you a PM about your part.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

I recently acquired my Bridgeport, so I've been doing a lot of small projects while I build up my inventory of tooling. When I was in school, we had wood table covers that dropped into the T-slot grooves to keep them clean and protect the table. I really liked them, but I prefer working with metal.

I downloaded a 2D CAD drawing of my Kurt vise and imported it into Fusion 360 and quickly drew up the covers. I made the covers .25" longer than the table to account for variances in vice centering. I made them 8.75" wide instead of 9" (width of the table) to also account for vise placement without having an overhang on the edges.

Excuse the mess, still need to clean up from yesterday.

The sheets were laser cut out of .188" (unknown grade).

Here you can see the contour of the vise (hence the 2D CAD drawing). You can also see the 10-32 screws are countersunk for a smoother surface.

The strips ride in the 5/8" slots and are made of .50"x.50" stock (allows .125 of front to back vise movement), tapped 10-32. The T-nuts were made of .75x1.00" stock and tapped 1/4"-20.

Bottom view.

 

[Toolmaker51]

Via forum tool, searched and found no mention of homemadetools.net
Rest assured, I'd place them FAR more welcoming than Practical Machinist.com and visibly more creative than hobbymachinist.com. There is no rejection because you have imported equipment, many do and create astounding improvements on them. Personally, I'm heavy on American Iron, totaling well over 200,000 pounds and counting. Take this as an invite, beware you'll be there awhile!
There are near 17,000 registered participants and a good percentage actually contribute. It seems to pivot at the center of 350 quality sites that are specialized on cars, planes, boats, cabins - you name it.

 

[Toolmaker51]

Anyone want to make this part from a Blackhawk S4 jack?

How bad you want it$. Just kidding, but with 45 years of Toolmaking behind me this can be solved economically. PM me or respond here.

 

[930dreamer]

I have a machinist lined up to make this part , thank you.

 

[4 FN 27]

I recently acquired my Bridgeport, so I've been doing a lot of small projects while I build up my inventory of tooling. When I was in school, we had wood table covers that dropped into the T-slot grooves to keep them clean and protect the table. I really liked them, but I prefer working with metal.

I downloaded a 2D CAD drawing of my Kurt vise and imported it into Fusion 360 and quickly drew up the covers. I made the covers .25" longer than the table to account for variances in vice centering. I made them 8.75" wide instead of 9" (width of the table) to also account for vise placement without having an overhang on the edges.

Nice work Bb&G...I need to do this one of these days. Making of the parts is not something I dread...but cleaning up the Mill before installing is!!!

 

[Monza Harry]

I recently acquired my Bridgeport, so I've been doing a lot of small projects while I build up my inventory of tooling. When I was in school, we had wood table covers that dropped into the T-slot grooves to keep them clean and protect the table. I really liked them, but I prefer working with metal.

Big Blue about the only thing I would do different it to have made them about 6" different in length to each other. It is a good practice to offset your vice each time you mount it up, this will allow the machine to wear more evenly instead of all I the middle. 3" offset will widen your everyday area out about ~6+" and this will make a huge difference in using your machine. If you have ever used one where the center is so loose it can't do anything without jumping all over the place and you can't even get to the ends as the "Gibbs" tighten onto the unworn ends, you will understand what we are trying to avoid. You already have some adjustment in your "table keys", now you may think about turning up the last three inches on the opposite end to allow this, and adds a shield to protect your hands during heavy fly cutting on the X axis, [this effectively shortens both of them 3"] so you can switch them from end to end [and rotate with your centered keys]. They turned out beautiful and very functional and you can still offset with the 3" "flanged" ends. I plan to do some of these if I ever get mine powered up. [Closer this week, I just yesterday picked up my newly rewound/re-bearinged motor now I just need proper power in the garage and a VFD! I just can't wait! ] Harry

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Big Blue about the only thing I would do different it to have made them about 6" different in length to each other. It is a good practice to offset your vice each time you mount it up, this will allow the machine to wear more evenly instead of all I the middle. 3" offset will widen your everyday area out about ~6+" and this will make a huge difference in using your machine. If you have ever used one where the center is so loose it can't do anything without jumping all over the place and you can't even get to the ends as the "Gibbs" tighten onto the unworn ends, you will understand what we are trying to avoid. You already have some adjustment in your "table keys", now you may think about turning up the last three inches on the opposite end to allow this, and adds a shield to protect your hands during heavy fly cutting on the X axis, [this effectively shortens both of them 3"] so you can switch them from end to end [and rotate with your centered keys]. They turned out beautiful and very functional and you can still offset with the 3" "flanged" ends. I plan to do some of these if I ever get mine powered up. [Closer this week, I just yesterday picked up my newly rewound/re-bearinged motor now I just need proper power in the garage and a VFD! I just can't wait! ] Harry

That's a great idea, I might just have to get another plate set cut. Luckily, this machine has chromed ways and appears to have lived a pretty easy life as everything is nice and tight. I looked at another machine that you could lean on the table and it would move like .005", but you couldn't tighten the gibs up anymore as the middle was so worn that the the table would've stuck on the ends of the travel. I was just talking to my uncle about how these old machines are like tractors; there is always something to be fixed/adjusted, and it always involves heavy parts.

I actually need to take the table off as I think I'm having an oiling issue on my Y axis screw. It's probably just a gummed up metering valve, but it's impossible to know without tearing her down. I'll probably go ahead and do new brass nuts while I'm in there.