making quick change tool holders

[andy_b]

i've read through a bunch of the old tool holder posts (and seem to recall John S. posting a description of some he made, though not the write-up he has about the entire tool post and holder fabrication). so i'm just wondering, from a cost standpoint, and placing a relatively low value on my time, is it worth the hassle to buy a 2' piece of 1"x3" CRS 1018 and making up 15 of these things (well, maybe 6 or 7 for now)? for my AXA-size tool post the standard plain holders are 3"x1"x1.5". there would be a bunch of drilling and tapping for all of the set screws, but my real concern is the dovetail. i'm thinking of trying it on the shaper, but if it gives me problems i'll need to purchase a suitable cutter for the mill.
are there any places online to buy a handful of the tool holders cheap? i've been searching but they all seem to be $30 or so for my size.

any advice is appreciated.

andy b.

[wierdscience]

Well Andy,that's about what a decent holder will cost,seems like that's what I paid for a couple PhaseII holders awhile back,question is do you have more time than money or vise-versa?

The trick is making a batch of them at onetime.15 is a good start,but I would shoot for 30.Drill the setscrew holes and cut the dovetails all at once,but leave the rest of the blocks blank making only a few basic tool holders first.Reason being as you need special holders you will have on hand un-finished blanks that you can cut,mill,shape as needed without having to start from scratch.

The easiest way to mill the dovetails is in stick form,cut a length of material equal to your mills travel and mill the dovetail in the whole length then chop them off in the saw.That way the dovetails are are the same.Hope this helps.

[Fasttrack]

Our school just bought a phase II kit for 100 bucks on sale that had the QC tool post, three normal holders, a cut-off holder, and a knurler!!!

Seemed like a good deal to me - maybe they are really crumby but i haven't noticed any problems and i use them a bunch.

[MGREEN]

i've read through a bunch of the old tool holder posts (and seem to recall John S. posting a description of some he made, though not the write-up he has about the entire tool post and holder fabrication). so i'm just wondering, from a cost standpoint, and placing a relatively low value on my time, is it worth the hassle to buy a 2' piece of 1"x3" CRS 1018 and making up 15 of these things (well, maybe 6 or 7 for now)? for my AXA-size tool post the standard plain holders are 3"x1"x1.5". there would be a bunch of drilling and tapping for all of the set screws, but my real concern is the dovetail. i'm thinking of trying it on the shaper, but if it gives me problems i'll need to purchase a suitable cutter for the mill.
are there any places online to buy a handful of the tool holders cheap? i've been searching but they all seem to be $30 or so for my size.

any advice is appreciated.

andy b.

Andy,
Sounds like a great job for the shaper, set it up
and watch it do its thing.
My little Clausing mill has no power feed, so that would be tons
of hand cranking on a long stick like that.
Also, like wierd says, keep some of the length for special holders.
Drilling and tapping the holes is the easy part.
Wish I had a shaper myself!
Mike Green

[Frank Ford]

I've made a few, mostly for fun. But, for economy, it's really hard to beat ten bucks each for AXA size holders from CDCO:

http://www.cdcotools.com/

Cheers,

Frank Ford
FRETS.COM
Gryphon Stringed Instruments
My Home Shop Pages

[MGREEN]

Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply.

[John Stevenson]

No it's probably not worth it nowadays to make holders.

I made mine before all the cheap imports came about, it was published in Model Engineer in about 1988 so it must have been a few years earlier that the original was made.

Also when you look at mine is a mirror image of what the AXA etc are like. Mine has external dovetails on the holder and internal on the post. My reasoning at the time was it's easier to do external dovetails and you need more holders than posts.
This way I can do a long stick of holders on the horizontal mill with a 60 degree side and face cutter, turn over and do the second side, no having to rely on a delicate dovetail cutter.

It was worth it for me then but I must admit on todays availability and costs I don't think I'd repeat the exercise.

The write up is on the web at
http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/to.../toolpost.html

And an article on building one,

http://www.rt66.com/~hypoxic/tool_post/toolpost.html

.

[andy_b]

I've made a few, mostly for fun. But, for economy, it's really hard to beat ten bucks each for AXA size holders from CDCO:

http://www.cdcotools.com/

Cheers,

Frank Ford

THANKS!!! i knew there had to be a cheaper source. for this price it really makes buying a few attractive.

andy b.

[cybor462]

Heah MGREEN... I have never heard back from you. I was wondering if you liked the tool I sent you. After I sent it you fell off the face of the earth.
I hope it did not push you over the edge.

Jim

[Spin Doctor]

For a holder for HSS tooling I'm not sure it would be worth your time and effort and money if you had to buy the steel. But for carbide tooling then if you can lay your hands on some insert holders, 1" square work alright, 1-1/4" is better then you can make quick change tooling like these

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/MVC-003S.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/MVC-002S.jpg