Shop Made Tools

[MattiJ]

Nice, that looks great. What material did you use for that collet chuck? Looks like it machined and threaded nicely, whatever it is.

Back plate: grp500 nodular cast iron
Chuck flange: 25crmo4
Chuck/collet body (the threaded part) 42crmo4 or 4142 for americans, backyard hardened and tempered to HRC 52 or so. Super nice to thread with absolutely no burr or tearing!

[plunger]

Back plate: grp500 nodular cast iron
Chuck flange: 25crmo4
Chuck/collet body (the threaded part) 42crmo4 or 4142 for americans, backyard hardened and tempered to HRC 52 or so. Super nice to thread with absolutely no burr or tearing!

How do you harden that in a homeshop. Its a big chunk of metal. Do have a surface grinder or do you just turn it after hardening in its hardened state?IsR52 is to handle with carbide insert tooling

[thaiguzzi]

ER32 collet chuck for the lathe:

Nice, but isn't there a lot of stick out? Could there have been less protrusion from the spindle?

[MattiJ]

How do you harden that in a homeshop. Its a big chunk of metal. Do have a surface grinder or do you just turn it after hardening in its hardened state?IsR52 is to handle with carbide insert tooling

Collet body is only about 40mm diameter and 80mm long so I heated it with a propane torch and annealed in kitchen oven


Outside I turned with CBN insert but carbide works too. Just need to go enough slow, I was running 200rpm when boring the collet taper and turning the thread and chip was already coming off blue-gray.
Definitely felt it was tough material to thread with carbide insert but finish was nicer than ever.

(0.05mm shrink fit with extra loctite between the flange and 40mm body/tube)

Nice, but isn't there a lot of stick out? Could there have been less protrusion from the spindle?

I was waiting for someone to ask about it... about same or actually bit shorter stickout than the normally used 3-jaw chuck. Because the last 2" of the lathe ways are lot less worn and carriage binds slightly there I want too keep out of that area.

[Cenedd]

So you turned, bored and threaded it AFTER hardening it then? Or did you do it before and just do a finishing pass afterwards?

Hardly in the same league but I finally got round to making a vertical shear tool and made me a whole load of EN24T 'hair'.

[MattiJ]

So you turned, bored and threaded it AFTER hardening it then? Or did you do it before and just do a finishing pass afterwards?

Hardly in the same league but I finally got round to making a vertical shear tool and made me a whole load of EN24T 'hair'.

Drilled the bar before hardening, everything else done after hardening.

[fixerdave]

Router baseplate adaptor

Just having fun...



3D printed this router baseplate adaptor today. First draft and it fit near perfect, snapped right into place. Near because it appears there's a slight fillet on the brass template followers I have and I didn't add a corresponding radius to where it mounts. Thus, it stands a hair proud. Next draft, when I get around to it, or I'll just run the deburring tool around.

Edit: looking at it, I might pull those tabs in a little while I'm at it.



Used the Fusion 360 threading tool, #8 screws, threaded right in like they were tapped.

Sorry, the backside came out a little blurry



So, now I can use my Porter Cable router template followers (not that I've ever used them) in my Bosch router. Of course, I have a Porter Cable router too, but whatever. I'm at the point in my Fusion 360 learning curve where I'm actually starting to have fun drawing. About 40min last night to draw (no, not very quick at it yet), a couple hours to print today whilst I ate breakfast and puttered, and, well, there it is.

It's actually a lot of fun... draw and print... so easy.

David...

[Ed ke6bnl]

did you put metal inserts in the tabs for strength?

[fixerdave]

did you put metal inserts in the tabs for strength?

No, threaded straight into the printed plastic. No real strength required, and if I dropped the router with a template guide installed, having the screws rip out would probably be better than the template guide taking all the force anyway. I mean, the central circle fits perfect, to the point where I have to tap the tabs around to line up the screw holes. That said, the screws fit very well (surprisingly well considering the printed threads) and I suspect they're quite strong.

Maybe I'll try that at some point... print a 1/4" thick block of plastic, 50% density or so (maybe bracket a few different densities to see if it makes a difference), with some threaded holes printed in, maybe a few different sizes, course and fine. Then, just use a torque wrench to see how far I can go before the threads strip out. Be interesting to see... probably should try different types of plastic as well. This is starting to sound like work

Oh, printer just stopped printing the back half of my cam-lock vice for the engraver... time to go see if that worked too.

David...

[Ed ke6bnl]

No, threaded straight into the printed plastic. No real strength required, and if I dropped the router with a template guide installed, having the screws rip out would probably be better than the template guide taking all the force anyway. I mean, the central circle fits perfect, to the point where I have to tap the tabs around to line up the screw holes. That said, the screws fit very well (surprisingly well considering the printed threads) and I suspect they're quite strong.

Maybe I'll try that at some point... print a 1/4" thick block of plastic, 50% density or so (maybe bracket a few different densities to see if it makes a difference), with some threaded holes printed in, maybe a few different sizes, course and fine. Then, just use a torque wrench to see how far I can go before the threads strip out. Be interesting to see... probably should try different types of plastic as well. This is starting to sound like work

Oh, printer just stopped printing the back half of my cam-lock vice for the engraver... time to go see if that worked too.

David...

I believe James Kilroy on youtube heated the insert and pushed them in might want to check his channel out, maybe a year ago though.

[fixerdave]

I believe James Kilroy on youtube heated the insert and pushed them in might want to check his channel out, maybe a year ago though.

Yes, that's the standard way of doing inserts in plastic... but I don't think I need inserts in this application. As I've said, the printed plastic threads seem to be very well fitting and I suspect more than strong enough. Time will tell.

David...

[DennisCA]

My shop is primarily a woodworking shop, with some metalworking going on too. Got the lathe in it's own room to protect it from dust. Anyway here's a tool I modified, a socalled "dust collector" more like a shopvac with an oversized hose. Made a cyclone separator for it which really made a big difference in having to clean out the filter.



Primitive sheet metal brake. Welding table is on wheels, in summer I roll it outside...

A future project is to make a proper magnabend. It'll take quite some time yet...

Homemade belt sander:



It is going through constant revisions. I rebuilt the platen assembly more than once, and I made a new table again for it (not pictures) with support on the sides of the belts so I can grind HSS tool bits on it. I do not own a bench grinder.

[DennisCA]

Also, homemade TIG pedal for my kemppi welding machine:


This is a "control box" where I can set an upper and lower range, that way I can adjust the resoution of the pedal, and my welder is a 300A machine so that might come in handy. The main reason I did this however was the official circuit diagram that I got a hold of, was designed like this and I don't have the electronics skill to make a simpler version. The kemppi machine is designed so the power setting on the machine is disabled when you hook up a remote, so if I made a simple one pot construction I'd always be limited to 0-300A. I prefer to keep it at 10-160.

[Catshooter]

Nice work. Do I spy a homemade vise on the welding table? Show it!

You have summers in Finland?


Cat

[DEVILHUNTER]

Took some easter time to machine some more double TTS heat shrink tool holders. Bored the inside of one to 7.97mm (endmill shank is 7.99mm), heated it with the torch and inserted the endmill. With all that stickout that you see on the picture (10cm from the spindle nose) runout at the end of the endmill (where the flutes start) was AWSOME, around 5 micrometers!