The
most interesting subjects are impossible to "finish"--you can never learn or buy everything. There is always something
more you'd like to beg, buy, borrow, build, or steal! Here is a list of
projects I'd like to someday add to my shop. These few pages
are where I keep my list and notes of things I want to make someday. On
this page are "smaller" projects--smaller in terms of difficulty
and time required. Bigger projects
may be found here. Engine projects
have their own page too.
Fixture
plates make it easy to align things on your mill table because you
have a grid of precision dowel pin holes. Put your vises and rotabs
on subplates with a matching grid and you can drop them on the table
and have them be very closely aligned right from the start.
Here is the basic plate that goes on the mill
table...
Handy Gadget to Indicate
Parts in the Lathe Chuck
I liked this little video
(other than leaving the key in the chuck, don't do that!):
He just uses a ball bearing
mounted on the QCTP to gently "nudge" parts into proper
alignment:
You'll want to be very
careful with this technique--don't fire up the spindle to a very
high rpm, for example. But, it looks like a real time saver if properly
done.
There are a couple of
great tips here. Aside from aligning the part in the chuck with
the ball bearing, the use of circular pieces instead of a dovetail
on the QCTP is also quite interesting. It also looks like he keeps
that indicator on a permanent holder on the lathe's backsplash where
it is handy to get to.
Turned File Handles and
Rack
I came across
these beautiful turned file handles on the Lathemaster
Yahoo Group. A fellow named Marv Stovall did them. I thought
they were really nice, and immediately wanted a set for myself.
This will make a good project to try my CNC
Lathe on when I get done converting it.
At the same
time, I'd love some kind of rack to make it easy to organize the
files. You need a collection of different styles, shapes, and sizes,
and it's hard to keep them all neat. According to Guy Lautard, he
knows a guy that keeps his in pipes filled with heavy cutting oil.
I have found that the heavy oil works as good or better than chalk
to keep files from loading up, and it would surely protect them.
BTW, I like
Nicholson files. For filing on the lathe, there's nothing like their
lathe pattern file either. makes for some really smooth work.
In the meanwhile,
I bought a box of cheap wooden handles off eBay for my files, which
are way better than nothing.
Splash Shield for Lathe
I love the travelling
chip guard on this CNC Mini Lathe:
Nice travelling chip guard!
I'm thinking
of making something similar for my lathe at some point. I think
what I will do is get some sheet Lexan and bend it over a cylindrical
form using a heat gun to soften it up. I might even make one up
the full travel of my lathe so I don't have to fool around making
a rail system so it moves.
Dodecahedron
These aren't really useful
for anything I can think of, but they sure are cool!
Mill Table Tramming Aids
These are aids for tramming
tooling, such as your milling vise, not the mill head. My favorite
is the idea of a tramming "key" to be installed in the
jaws of your milling vise. The idea is due to John
Stevenson and looks like this:
Insert
the U-shaped key in your vise jaws, tighten the jaws, press the
key against the top T-slot edge, and tight down the vise. Nothing
could be faster or simpler!
Here are
rough dimensions for a key to fit a Kurt D675...
One fella mentions this
is a handy way to quickly square things on his mill table:
He said
he made it up and machined the edges of the T-Square so that they
would be true to the table. Seems like a pretty slick idea to get
a vise or other item lined up quick. He did say if he had it to
do over again he'd use a piece of 1" square bar.
I have seen
someone else recommend making up some pegs that can be inserted
in the table slots to line things up. That doesn't seem like it
would be as accurate, although I did get an email from someone who
had used the round pegs on the vise or in the T-Square itself and
said it worked great.
He calls
it a "PerpEdge". He lines it up with a square and then
double checks with an indicator. Looks easily made. I'd like to
see how well this sort of thing might work for lining up my vises
on the mill table.
Another approach is to install a key
on the bottom of the vise that will mate tightly with the T-Slots
on the table. I liked this
description from the HSM board of how to install a key on a
the base of a milling machine vise so that it will always be in
tram on the table:
If the vise does not already have a key slot in
the base, install a tight fitting key in one of the table's T
slots. Invert the vise and clamp it to this key. Mill a keyway
in the base of the vise, usually through the slots for the hold
down slots, that corresponds to the table slot. Install a key
in this slot with socket head cap screws.
You might have to shim the fixed jaw for the ultimate in tram,
but the vise will always be reinstalled in the same position.
Another thought, if you don't want to modify the
vise, is to make a tramming fixture that you clamp in the vise jaws.
Said fixture would mate with the T-slot precisely enough to ensure
tram as the vise is being bolted down.
Here is another approach that uses
low temperature Cero alloy that sounds interesting:
My Method,for dead nuts accuray
and repeatability, and no 'precise' machining to get it.
Make a Subplate. (I use 3/4 Aluminum )
Drill holes for hold down bolts through/into the keyways.
Set the vise on the plate roughly in the setting, without clamping.
mark the locations of the vise keys...roughly.
remove the vise and mill 1/4" deep slots for keys, except make
the slots long enough to be exposed outside the vise..maybe 3/8"
/
now mount the vise and indicate Very close, then pour in some
low melting alloy , like Cerrocast,Cerro Safe, Cerralloy. when
the melt protrudes above the slot, slap a parrallel down on it,
forcing the melt upinto the vise keyways, and chilling it. You
now have a permanent set of keys, that accurately set the vise
to plumb EVEN if the keyways do not match !. If you remove the
vise, the keys can go with it for other tooling allignment like
a rotary table. Just keep track of which key is which . The Cerro
Alloy is hard and it really works guys.
If you remove a vise and the mounting hole is exposed during another
operation, take an old Christmas candle ,and jam it down the opening
and cut it off even with the subplate . this seals it from chips,
but is easily dug out and it lubes the screw when you replace
the vise.
Mill Vise Caddy
Here is a nifty accessory
to save humping that heavy vise on and off the mill table:
It's so
nicely made, isn't it? You clamp the vice jaws onto the thing and
you can lift the vise off and swing it out of the way. It almost
seems to me like something slightly more general would let you keep
a bunch of vises, rotary tables, and other goodies on a shelf behind
the mill and bring them on and off as needed. You can by one already
made from SPI (via MSC or other dealer) which calls the product
a "Mill Vise Caddy." Cost, $339.
The magnetic chip shield is also handy,
and could be easily made.
A spindle coolant collar is a very
handy thing indeed. Firstly, it provides a convenient way for
the coolant nozzles to track the activity of the mill in a more
elegant and permanent way than the magnetic versions that are
available. This ensures that once the nozzles are lined up properly,
they'll do the right thing wherever the spindle wanders. Second,
there are numerous reports that the darned things can also help
cool down your spindle bearings, which seems like a darned thoughtful
thing to be doing as well to me. I figure making one of these
will be an ideal CNC project once I get my IH
Mill converted over to CNC.
Meanwhile, I have started an Idea
Notebook with pictures of a number of different coolant systems
along these lines.
So many great ideas I
started an Idea Notebook page
for this one. Here is a typical sample from the Lathe Tooling Organization
page:
QCTP Indicator
Holder
Someday in the not too distant future
I plan to give my lathe a tune up. I want to check spindle runout,
adjust the preload on the spindle bearings, check the headstock
and tailstock alignments, and generally give it a little TLC.
I want it running as accurately as possible before I tackle making
the end blocks to hold the ballscrews when I convert
the lathe over to ballscrews. Angular contact bearings need
some pretty close tolerances for installation. I'll also be turning
the ends of the ballscrews, so it pays to have it all shipshape.
One of the things that I've been
seeing for a long time and thinking I need to build is a QCTP
holder with an indicator in it. I
recently saw another one and thought I'd do a little roundup
article here so I've got the details all in one place. One of
these will be handy for the lathe tuneup as well as for indicating
in the 4-jaw chuck.
Needs no Dovetail Cutter
If you don't have a dovetail cutter
for making QCTP holders (I made one,
it isn't hard!), you might consider this fellow's approach of
just doing it by milling the dovetails as separate parts:
The Components. Note How the Dovetails
Are Bolted to the Holder...
"Flapper" For Irregular
Shapes
Marv
Klotz gave us the "Flapper" design for dialing in
irregular shapes or square stock in the 4-jaw:
This one just uses a magnet to
attach itself...
JTiers Approach to Irregular Shapes
5Bears Indicator Holder
5Bears (the Swede) modified an unused
QCTP (looks like a knurler) for this purpose:
CNCCookbook "Instant" Indicator
Holder
As I was writing this, I was staring
at an indicator holder that fits onto a height gage I got off
eBay. These replace the carbide scriber and can be used to increase
sensitivity and accuracy of the height gage. eBay seller discount_machine
(I think that's Shars) has them for $8.95:
If you want one (I ordered a second
after seeing how useful they can be), do an eBay search for "HEIGHT
GAGE INDICATOR". They only have them on "Buy it now"
in their store, so you may have to look carefully.
I took this little gadget together
with the QCTP knurler holder (everyone has one and they aren't
that hot if you get a scissors knurler, so its great to reuse
it) and put them together to get this:
It wouldn't take much to rework the
mounting bar so it was just like 5-Bears holder.
Bearing
Greaser
Here's
a neat little bearing greaser Bogstandard
showed over on the HMEM boards:
Zerk for
grease gun is on top. Just use the hand gun, not a pneumatic or
there is a danger of bending the shield!
I had
an idea for some fixtures to
help with preloading bearings. Perhaps a multi-purpose fixture
could be created, I'll have to ponder that.
Bench Tapping
Fixture
A bench tapping fixture...
This little
gadget would be handy to have around for precision tapping a hole
straight up and down and would not be hard to make. I'm saving
it for an early CNC project once my machines are converted.
Lathe Spindle
Spider
You normally
see spindle spiders done up with 4 set screws, but I really liked
this this gorgeous spindle bar support system I found on
the Chaski board:
The different
sized bushings are held in the spindle by the friction of their
o-rings. Personally, I'd like a little more positive locking action,
but the basic style is very nice and a good idea to prevent the
bar whipping as it spins. I've got to add this to my project wish
list.
Lots of folks feel this
inexpensive
tool and carbide grinder is a great buy and a must-have for
the home shop. Mine has performed extremely well right out of the
box. I even went quite a ways with the relatively low quality wheels
that came with it.
I've included some pictures
and comments about accessories people have made for it as well:
A
diamond dressing attachment...
A
mitre attachment...
Recommended
wheels:
The wheels
for this grinder are 6" diameter and 1 1/4" arbor.
Diamond
220 grit from Enco: Got it just the other day!
Aluminum
Oxide 46 Grit from J&L: I'm gonna run the wheels that came
with the grinder for a little while and see how they do.
More
Attachments and Tune Ups
These are
from Jim Hubbell. Balancing new wheels:
XY Table
with sensitive feed and lathe tool universal vise:
Web Cam
on the Mill and Lathe
Plus Laser
Cross Hairs
S_J_H built this gorgeous housing for a $30 Logitech
web cam and posted
it on HSM:
The finished camera inserted in an R8 collet on
the mill...
Mach 3 can display the feed from the camera...
Looks like the camera sub-housing has centering
screws...
Here are the parts...
Some interesting thoughts:
- S_J_H reports that for sharp edges, he can find
a corner within 0.0005". Pretty close! He goes on to say
that punch marks look like craters.
- With the manual focus ring, the Logitech would
focus down to1/8" from the lens.
- CentreCam is a piece of software that also handles camera feeds for machinework.
I think it has more optical comparator functions than Mach does
built in.
- Evan
suggests an interesting idea if you want to permanently mount
the camera. He suggests mounting the camera to focus on an angle,
and a laser pointer on another angle. Figure out the height where
the laser is centered where the spindle will go and focus the
camera on that same point. I like the idea of having both a laser
and camera available, and could even see mounting them in the
same housing. It would be cool to have a custom button in Mach
3 that automatically puts these at the right height so they're
focused dead center of the spindle. I think a laser pointer would
be ideal to line up stock within 0.1" prior to firing up
a CNC program that will separate the part from the chips inside
the workpiece.
- You could also face the laser and video straight
down and program the offset from spindle center into Mach 3. This
is probably a better idea as it becomes spindle height independent.
In practice, you'd hit the button and the table would center on
the laser/video center. You could then jog as desired and hit
the button again and you would offset to where the spindle was
centered exactly where'd you'd jogged to with the video. That
would be cool!
These little cross hairs are available from DealExtreme for $4.30. So cheap!!!
Here are the crosshairs. To use with CNC, Greolt
programmed in a button on Mach 3 that compensates for the offset
from the spindle automatically...
But wait,
this gets more clever. He added some code to Mach 3 that deals
with the fact the laser cross hairs are offset from the spindle.
Here are the controls:
The target
toggles the laser on and off. "Laser Zero" zeros the
machine at the lasers current position allowing for its offset
from the spindle! The X and Y DRO's let you enter the offset of
the laser from spindle center.
Here is
what the Mach 3 code looks like to do that:
Xmove
= GetUserDRO(1152) 'X distance DRO
Ymove
= GetUserDRO(1153) 'Y distance DRO
Code "G91
G0 X" &Xmove & "Y" &Ymove
While
IsMoving ()
Wend
Code "G90
M9"
DoOEMButton
(1008)
DoOEMButton
(1009)
The M9
is to turn laser off after the zero. M7 turns it on. He's just
using the mist coolant commands to run the laser. The two "DoOEMButton"
zero the X and Y. The two DROs are to set the laser offset distance
for the script.
Put
it all together...
My crazy
idea is to combine these two. I want a permanent mounting bracket
that holds a housing containing the web cam and integrated laser
cross hairs alongside the spindle. We probably want a flip open
lens protector as well. I also want it fully integrated so Mach
3 knows about the offset from the spindle. Now you have laser
cross hairs when 0.1" is "close enough", and a
0.001" camera comparator for more precise work that is always
there.
That little setscrew with locknut will apply pressure to the top of the head causing it to pivot smoothly. Makes tramming the head faster, easier, and more precise. I would think it might help hold the head in place a little better too! Mount one on either side so the head can be pushed either way...
This should be a simple
project. I basically need to take a circular plate and drill two
sets of holes on bolt circles. The first circle will be identical
to the bolt circle used by my lathe to mount the chuck backplate
to the spindle. To be precise, I want the circle that holds the
little faux cam lok's into the back plate:
The second
bolt circle will consist of 4 holes that are outside the diameter
of the chucks. I will use these to bolt the assembly down using
the T-Slot system on the rotab. Here is a similar such project done
by another machinist:
Backside of adapter, showing bolts through
to chuck...
Front side of chuck ready to bolt down to
rotab...
QCTP Knurling Holder
I need to build a clamp-type
knurling tool for my lathe and I need to work on some projects involving
the mill to gain experience with it. This one fills both needs nicely.
