Sort of milling with the bandsaw and a bandsaw mini pallet

[BCRider]

Been working on some hold downs for one of my milling vises to suit my shaper. Just because I can I've done all the shaping of the blocks in the shaper. And I wanted to cut a nice bevel on them. But it's not all that big a shaper and doing all these blocks would take a pretty fair time. So I thought I'd cut off the bulk of the bevel and then just finish cut them. In thinking of how best to do this I came up with this sort of mini pallet for my 4x6 bandsaw. It's not anything fancy but the idea might aid someone else down the road.

It's simply a plate cut from 1/4" hot rolled and then for now I drilled and tapped one hole for the 3/8 clamping studs I use in my home shop. And to aid with positioning I opted to go with the idea of drilling 3/32 holes and using locator pins simply made from 3/32 welding filler rod. These turned out to be a light tap into place fit which could be pulled out using pliers after.

I'll drill future locator pin and stud holes as needed along the way.

The hold down clamp is part of the general purpose 3/8 size strap clamp and step block set I use for all the smallish size machines in my shop.

I'm smiling at how this will give me more easy options for holding work in the bandsaw rather than manually doing such cuts in the vertical mode.

If you have a 4x6 and are like me the guide bars sit at the same position just out past the side table jut and in that case please note that the plate shown is pretty well the maximum width that will fit at 4 5/16 (or 11cm if you work metrically). The length on the one shown is 6 5/8 inch but of course it can be just about any length.

I was taking the picture and realized that while rough and ready this is essentially a mini pallet for the bandsaw....

First pic shows the plate with locator pins. Second is how the pins fit and locate the part and finally one part freshly cut and the next about to be swapped in.

[BCRider]

Because I was on a shaper binge for all this I also cleaned up the flame cut edges of the plate and set them more or less (by ruler and eye) to be parallel. This led to an interesting setup using the side of the box on the Alba shaper.

[Doozer]

A Pallet is more universal in nature.
What you made is a fixture plate.
(Not all aluminum is billet).

-D

[Stepside]

Now I am confused. I don't if I should build a "fixture plate"or a "pallet" for my Roll-In saw. I have some nice Aircraft grade Aluminum to use.

BC Rider thanks for the idea it will be another upgrade for the Roll-In.

[Doozer]

Read it more slowly
because you might not understand fast.

-D

[DR]

Thanks for the idea.

What I discovered recently when faced with how to hold small steel parts in the horizontal bandsaw is to weld a handle onto the part so it'll easily be held in the bandsaw's vise. It works well for steel parts using MIG, but I'm not much of a TIG welder on aluminum.

[Dan_the_Chemist]

Please tell us more about your shaper... It looks very similar to the BattleShaper... my 24" shaper from about 1910

[BCRider]

A Pallet is more universal in nature.
What you made is a fixture plate.
(Not all aluminum is billet).

-D

I know. But it's currently in vogue to call stuff that looks even remotely like this sort of horizontal fixture a "mini pallet". I was going for the click bait

[Dan Dubeau]

I like it. I just hauled my bandsaw up to the house from the barn on Sunday, and started cleaning it up (a little surface rust). I want to make some fixtures, and other upgrades like an extension table, and vertical table for it, and am really looking forward to having it in the shop from now on. It's still sitting outside under a tarp until I can figure out where to shoe horn it in.

[BCRider]

Please tell us more about your shaper... It looks very similar to the BattleShaper... my 24" shaper from about 1910

Oh lordy! ! ! ! Your shaper is easily twice the size and likely six times or more the weight of my "dainty" Alba 1A.

Here it is along with my 12x36 lathe and both of them flanking the shared roller tool chest which is also the "landing pad" for tools and parts during jobs with either one.



And to further illustrate the size here is the vise which I bought simply because it fits between the T slots and which is the excuse for making up the four hold down blocks which will line up with the T nuts when used in the longitudinal direction so that the jaws sit cross ways. The vise which so dominates the table is just a 4 inch jaw width.



The intent is use four blocks for the shaper due to the impacts often seen on shapers vs smoother loads on a mill. The vise is just a touch wider than the flat area between the outer T slot edges. So the option of using the vise with the orientation shown is not only possible but it almost looks like this vise was tailor made to fit my Alba. But to make this work in this orientation the hold down blocks need to place the screws almost dead up against the sides of the vise to line up with the T nuts in the slots. So that's the excuse for making new hold downs.....

I'm having a lot of fun with the shaper NOW! But it took me some years after some dismal starts where I tried to use the usual lathe tooling and got results that looked as if chewed out by a rabid gerbil. Thanks to finding a couple of books on shapers and their required tool geometry and videos from Rustinox from about two years ago I've gotten some constantly improving results and now it's just a pleasure to use the shaper. The current shear tool with light cuts for final finishing rivals the look and feel of a finely ground finish in fact. And I'm getting better roughing cuts from some special shapes too.

But in the end it's still an old machine and of a lighter construction. For shaping the rebate edge on the blocks shown to make the actual hold down fingers I found that I was at my comfort level with the single tooth stepover of .008 and a .03 DOC. I did do one pass at .04 but way the whole machine jumped made me ease back to .03. This is, after all, at LEAST a 50 year old machine with no support for parts. I don't want to break or wear out anything. So removing a roughly .37 x .4 rebate on a 5.3" long block took not quite an hour. This included lining up and measuring the finish passes.

My mini knee mill won't take massive hogging cuts either. But it would have done this one step in about half the time with about 6 passes versus the roughly 12 passes. But then I wouldn't be enjoying the shaper.... And it IS a hobby, right?

Next up after these hold down blocks is a feed wheel with more like 30 teeth instead of the current one with 20. That'll reduce my minimum stepover to more like .005 and give me more options for feeding. I'm hoping that with a finer step over that I'll be able to peel away up around 0.1" wide ribbons for roughing.

OK, your turn. A little more about the battle shaper please?

[Doozer]

I know. But it's currently in vogue to call stuff that looks even remotely like this sort of horizontal fixture a "mini pallet". I was going for the click bait

You are a master click bater.

-D

[BCRider]

Thanks for the idea.

What I discovered recently when faced with how to hold small steel parts in the horizontal bandsaw is to weld a handle onto the part so it'll easily be held in the bandsaw's vise. It works well for steel parts using MIG, but I'm not much of a TIG welder on aluminum.

So this would fit in and avoid the need for welding and then cutting off and dressing the weld away? Or is this an alternate?


Dan, I use my saw at least as much in the vertical mode as I do in the horizontal. Along the way I've done a few things.....

First was to shift the fixed jaw over so it sits about 1/8 inch away from the blade. I also nudged them a little closer to the jaw so I got a little increase in the max width.



Next was I made up this "bridge" for holding short parts which would not be possible to hold with the swiveling nature of the movable jaw. I notice that some put a screw directly into the jaw. But then it needs to be adjusted more frequently. I prefer the removable bridge instead so I can just place or remove it and only need to adjust when it's needed. I used the fancy bar of aluminium shown because at the time it was there and didn't need any cutting. The knurled knob is nice but make it a small diameter and a little longer so it spins in and out faster. It's not anything that needs any torque after all.



For the table the one that came with it was a useless bit of junk. Again using what I had on hand I cut a blade slot and cut away the corner of this piece of 1/8 scrap and drilled and countersunk for the two screws. It's only 3.5 x 5.5 inches but I can't say that I've ever felt the need for anything bigger. On occasion I've used a small vise upside down to hold small round bar which wants to spin. But I've always managed to lay the jaws down on the outer side away from the corner cut. And it's worked OK. So the table doesn't need to be all that large. Best part is that the plate I used came with pre-rounded corners. It was a CNC cutout scrap I picked up at the scrap metal dealer. I had about 6 of them at one point. The others ended up as other things and one is still a new table for one of my grinders.

[Dan Dubeau]

I've been debating getting rid of my shaper lately. Last time I talked to the previous owner (old coworker) he mentioned maybe wanting it back, so I might give him a call shortly. It's a Prema 13", and I'd love to trade it for a small 7" one. If I had the space I wouldn't even think about getting rid of it, but.....I want that space for another machine......

I like that bridge! looks handy

[BCRider]

The high angle skew cutter I'm using for those fine final cuts of between .003 to .005 peels off some thread like shavings. It was time to give the new macro lens and extension tubes a try. Camera is a Fuji XT200 mirrorless. Lens is 7Artisans 60mm F2.8. Tube, not that it greatly matters is Meike 16mm. Settings are F22 at 1/15s... again if anyone cares.

Not bad.... A bit of purple fringing. But that's what I get for using F22. I should have backed off the light more.

The shavings look pretty rough and thready in this picture. They look like shiny bits of thread to the eye. The divisions to the right of the "3" are 1/16's and 1/32's to the left.

[Dan_the_Chemist]

Oh lordy! ! ! ! Your shaper is easily twice the size and likely six times or more the weight of my "dainty" Alba 1A.

[snip]

OK, your turn. A little more about the battle shaper please?

Yes, it is BLOODY heavy. I am estimating 3+ tons. When I first saw it I said it was big enough to machine a battle ship, and that is how it got it's name. It was clearly too big for me, but the old machinist who had owned it since 1970 almost begged me to give it a good home. He didn't want to see it scrapped. He sold it to me for about scrap metal price. It has a lovely antique 3 HP motor that is a marvel in and of itself. I posted a lot about it a few years ago, so if you search for "Battle Shaper" you will find a bunch of stuff.

Or, I can tell you in messages. I just don't want to be redundant or hijack a thread.

Dan