Thread: Todays Horizontal setup....

Needed to do some rework on the drive pin holes on some vintage F-1 wheels.
Bit too long to stand up and run vertical, so i went horizontal.

Used the universal table rotation to get the table long in the "Y" axis to allow holding the wheel far enough from the spindle to do the work....



Made some little setup blocks to hold a Lincoln V 12 (pre Ford ) on my line boring machine. I made the blocks to adjust to different angles and they bolted to the
head decks on the Lincoln....Anyhow these worked fine as a wide, adjustable "Vee" block of sorts.....used some plywood to cushion the wheel and keep it from shifting.

Ratchet hold downs go around the table such that all movement including rotation are not hampered.....







Rotation of the table was used to tram the mounting face of the wheel as was the front to rear tilt of the table.
All done after pulling down the wheel on the "Vees"...Gotta just love that table!

Cheers Ross

cool v blocks.

Nice! You are so lucky to get welds like those on your v-block fixtures.

I wish I had a table like that on my FP2NC, if only to gain some headroom in horizontal mode like you show. I've been using my FP2NC in horizontal mode lately to put a bolt circle in the end of a part held in a three-jaw chuck on a simple indexer. Even though the indexer has 6" center height, I still had to put the indexer up 2" on 2-4-6 blocks to reach the lowermost hole in the part. The horizontal mode on my machine is much, much quieter than vertical, and therefore more pleasurable to run. It's quieter because the gear train runs in reverse compared to vertical, and the reverse faces of the gears are not so worn. As a result, the machine only howls when braking from high speed, because the reverse torque of braking puts the worn gear tooth faces back into action.

I find the main drawback of horizontal mode is visibility. It's hard to center up on a feature by eye because I cannot get my fat head in close enough to the action. It's less of a problem in vertical mode.

How did you get the rim square to the spindle? Those "v-blocks" look like they would let the part sit wherever it wanted.

The table's got two axes of rotation. He mounted the wheel to the table, then squared it up by adjusting the table angles. See the last two sentences of the original post.

Ross, for my curiosity, if you had a vertical large enough (like a huge Pratt & Whitney jig bore), or a top quality radial drill... would it have been acceptable alignment to use the rim of the wheel secured to a table, vertically ? Regardless, amazing wheel design.

Originally Posted by rklopp

I wish I had a table like that on my FP2NC,

Throw enough money at me and you can have one ! But seeing as it's probably the only FP2NC sized universal table on the planet for sale it won't be cheap.

The vee blocks are so beautiful that at first, I thought they were the subject of the post and was wondering what that weird vase was doing on the mill table

Amazing how you turned a simple clamping equipment into a true work of art, both by design and craftmanship.

There's obviously some time in those vee blocks and they were necessary for this job so my question is, did the customer not only pay for the boring on the rim but for the fabrication time for the vee blocks as well!

Stuart

Maybe a dum question but what is the advantige of those rotating supportblocks
Because they are beautiful made does not mean they do a better job as just a solid block with a cut off angle and some wood bolted to the table
Perhaps a 2 hour job
I think when they were solid block they did a better job and were more versatile
Imagen that wheel more higher or lower on those blocks
There it would rest on a unstable surface
Just my opinion

Peter from holland

Pete, if you and I read the same posting then you must have missed that he said he used a set of angle blocks he had made for a V12 engine. I am sure that they needed to be made the way they are for that application. I see no reason that re-purposing them here was much of an issue rather than trying to make something custom for every task.

Nice how with the table designed like it is that the straps worked out. Otherwise you would have to make some kind of chain strap or mount some eyebolts to the table to use the straps. Thanks again for sharing another neat solution to a problem, I am sure I will remember this one for later.

Charles

Speaking of those wheels are those still the kind used today? I hate to admit I cant remember the last time I paid any attention to F1 wheels...

Charles

Thanks all for the comments....
ewlsey: The datum i used to make the wheel alignments was the face (inside of the wheel) where the wheel mounts to the car's drive flange. For circular alignment i dialed off the
center hole for the axle.
As to locating the holes to be reworked...i did not try to align the holes to the machine in any way. Just dialed up on one of the drive pin holes..took the position relative the the wheel center, then knowing the axle
drive pin pitch circle...i drew it all up in SurfCam and solved for all 4 drive pin holes...then i jig bored at those locations....

As stated earlier i used the rotate and tilt features of the table to move the wheel into alignment after strapping it down....then i did the center dial up and mapping of one of the drive pin holes.

Don:
this job required going quite a bit larger on the drive pin holes than those originally done...wanted some real way to move to defined locations so as not to let the pattern get away...
In this case large drill press might have worked, but might have increased chances for pattern to drift. The back rim flange is usually good enough as to getting the wheel true, and i have done shorter (fronts) wheels vertically
off the rim face and just hold down clamps on the edge.
In running the wheels vertical, the early FP-NC's have advantage with more head room over the later flip head machines due to the way the vertical slide is designed.


Stuart:
The "Vees" were purpose built for another job. I needed to line bore the main bearings (babbitt) on an early Linclon V-12 . Job requires the motor to be set on the machine upside down with the pan rail facing up so you can get access to the mains . the Lincoln case is pretty large and the sides are quite smooth with no place to fix any clamps to hold the case down....I made the fixtures to be sort of "universal"...hoping to use them on additional jobs.
In the case of the Lincoln the top arm of the fixtures bolt directly to the cylinder head mounting (gasket) faces not only giving a method of clamping to the case, but providing a flat surface (bottom of the fixtures) that the could be secured to the boring machine....The customer did pay for some of the construction time, I covered some and future jobs will also help.
Most of what i do is via time and materials....

Cheers Ross

Charles:
Not real sure how "current" F-1 wheels are done... All the old nails here have similar wheels to the one i am doing....but current stuff i have no real knowledge of.
Makers are still doing new versions of what you see in the photos above on demand and for a price. Being fairly thin and cast Mag, they do have a life span even if
the driver never has a shunt...
Cheers Ross

I'd like to echo the nice job compliments, well done. Automotive parts are so challenging because there are so often no cylindrical or square surfaces to fixture to, and if there are they aren't quite concentric or parallel to what you are working on. And then race parts being so light and so highly stressed by the time you need to work on them the parts you can measure from are no longer round or straight. The care you put into those fixtures is clear.

How easy is it to move that table in very small increments and hit the position you want?

Moving the table in small increments is pretty easy. If i am looking for very small rotary movement of the table i will use a long pattern 17mm box wrench on the
nut that is in the center of the handwheel....Longer lever + better control ...and you can keep your eye on the "C" display you can get pretty small with any corrections.
Same on the front to back tilt...there i use a long pattern 14...again long lever + small movements.

There are some tricks. I try to position the working surface as close as possible to the pivot line of the table (front to rear) so that any angle changes happen more predictably.

I try to make my setup to avoid having to tilt the table side to side......because the table tends to wedge away from the mounting surface when the clamps are loosened, making accurate moves
in the side to side tilt can be a bit annoying and trying.....Also returning to tram after such moves are time consuming. The indicator for tram works on a notch in the mounting face. As the clamps are loosened the table tilts forward some and the indicator reading follows, so getting back to "zero" requires overshooting the indicator reading with the hope of hitting the mark when everything is tight......
On the other hand the rotate and front to back moves are very predictable and repeatable.

Cheers Ross

Rklopp--I can assure you, there is no luck involved in welds like that.
Can you tweak the headroom on your FP2NC by moving the table up or down a slot on the X axis mounting surface?

Ross--those clamps are art! Do the pivots lock or just swivel free?

Re the headroom, I have not noticed that on my machines, but I have the toolmaker table on the flip head and the NCT on the old style.
I havent measured it, but my impression is that the flip head machine has more headroom than the older style machine, even though the NCT sits lower. The flip head spindle nose sits lower on the Y ram compared to the older machines, but the vertical slides look the same to me?

Theoretically speaking, do you think the FP4NC's geometry and ability to locate holes is the same in horizontal vs vertical?

Re the Universal table and this set up-
I find a big advantage of this table (learned this from Ross) and the swiveling vee blocks is the ability to let the part "relax" on the table, and at the same time be able to find the most effective/easy way to hold the part. All without having to worry about shimming/tapping/kibutzing with getting the part into tram with the machine. Set the part on the table, clamp, then adjust the table to truth with the machine.

I always look at an AlfaGTA post first. Always interesting and informative. I do mostly high end race car jobs here and like to see what others with like interests do.

Sidewalls must've been a bitch for the poor old tyre fitter, would be fun to get sand in there too, trying to put out the light!

Totally, totally OT, but since the "upgrade" all your shots on the U/table woes thread have disappeared. Can you guess at the length of cabling from the table to the control? I've got something suggesting 20m , except for one of the ROD encoders - and I think your's was ERO.

HH seem to have specced an unavailable 9 core (here at least), .25mm² for the ref points but .75mm² for power and earth. One of the electrical catalogues I have, suggest this is good for 12 amps and I can't imagine the itsy-bitsy lamps in there consuming that.....but maybe with a long enough resistor.

Steve:
The pivot on the "Vee's" clamps. I used stripper bolts that have a ground OD and a reduced thread at the end. Upper arm has the pivot hole bored then finished honed for a push fit to the bolts.
Side faces if the verticals are a fit to the face of the pivot block...when the bolt is tightened the arm is quite well restrained....May not be clear in the photos, but the vertical legs are also relieved just
above the weldment where they join the to the base. The relief it was hoped would aide in allow the pinch of the bolt to be applied to the pivot block.... seem to work.

Think the accuracy of running horizontal is a function of the machine condition.......Mine, i believe, is pretty good both horizontal or vertical. Machines having issues with the vertical ways (been there done that) could have inaccuracy
in the vertical moves. Any stiction from poor slides will cause some lag (yea i know its got scales, but lag always exists) and the down move if slides are rough and sliding poorly will have more lag than the up move....
Result is that circular interpolation in the X,Z plane will have a harder time coming out round....Have seen this effect with my own machine (before the "Z" slide rebuild) even with well tuned servos.

On the other hand i prefer to do any large surfacing job using the horizontal. Any "rock" of the table as its weight and position shifts will have little to no effect on the flatness or a vertical surface produced using the horizontal
spindle.


Cheers Ross