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Fun things to do with a boring head

Stu Miller

Hot Rolled
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Location
Covington, Wa
I am sure some of you are familiar with all the things you can do with a boring head, but I am just beginning to figure out uses other than the mundane boring of holes. I am sure others are in the same boat, so, for your amusement-and hopefully education-here are some pictures of a couple of things I did with mine this week.

The first photos show a round boss being shaped with a radiused corner end mill. This could have been done on the rotary table, or on the lathe, but in the first case I would have had to trade the rotary table for the vise and, in either case, do all the necessary setup work. This way, I could just center the spindle over the boss, set the depth stop on the spindle, use automatic feed to move the tool down, and feed in as necessary with the boring head to get the proper boss diameter with radiused fillet at the bottom.

Boringaboss.jpg


100_0762.jpg


You will note that I had to reverse the spindle rotation to use the cutter this way. I could have set it up in a different hole in the cutter and used standard rotation direction if I had gotten smart faster.

The process was much faster than setting up either on the rotary table or the lathe for this little job and will be even faster the next time I have a similar problem.

The second task was rounding the corners of the part. I needed a 5/16 radius corner rounding bit, a size the Boeing surplus store has not yet sold me. My solution was to use a small piece of half inch high speed steel (a Boeing surplus spade type drill bit). I ground the bit as shown, Boeing having done me the favor of removing most of the material. I should have ground the face flat and parallel to the tool axis for better results, but I wasn't even sure it this idea was going to work, so used the tool face as provided by Boeing.

100_0761.jpg

I then put it in the boring head and adjusted things until it was equivalent to a one tooth corner rounding cutter with about a 3/16 minor diameter. I tried it on a piece of scrap and determined it worked well enough for this small project, so I just got to work. The part ready for hand blending is shown in the last photo.

100_0767.jpg


These two ideas worked well for me. I hope they are new and useful to some of you. Those of you who already know these tricks can bask in the glow of inspiring me with clever solutions to problems you have posted here to get inventive when the perfect tool is not available.


Stu Miller
 
The second setup with the 5/16" was used as a scraper, with back and forth traverse of the table? I had to stare at it a bit to convince myself there was no way it would work as a rotary bit with the assymmetric tip. The light glows dimly now, if you offset so the pointy part is at the center of rotation.... Voila. Very neat.
Steve
 
You can also use the boring head in conjunction with a rotary table and angle plate (or swivel the b-port's head) to make spheres.
 
You will note that I had to reverse the spindle rotation to use the cutter this way. I could have set it up in a different hole in the cutter and used standard rotation direction if I had gotten smart faster.
That there will make wonder about having a screw on shank (so common w/criterion) versus an integral....things can get real ugly real fast when that head unscrews... that could qualify as another fun thing to do with a boring head!! :D
 
This is a picture I posted last year of a boring head producing a sphere, I used an inclinable rotary table, but got fed up with hand turning it.
MachBall_02.jpg

So, recently I used the boring head to machine this spherical cup, only this time tilted the BP head and powered the rotary table, this gave a superb finish, the table was doing about 7 rpm and the spindle 120 rpm.
Spherical_Concave_01.jpg

Bridgeport4thAxis_01.jpg
 
TMD- Its part of the cross-slide rotary table described in the July/August issue of The Home Shop Machinist, from which I scanned this photo.

x-sliderotary.jpg


The part in question is the housing for the handwheel shaft and worm gear (sticks out to the right front of the table base).

LeVant, That is quite the setup. I assume the gear motor is on a separate mounting plate so that you may arrange it to suit needs and maybe different equipment??

Stu

Edited to add picture source-Stu
 
Thanks guys, things I would never thought of.
8:15 AM, 1st cuppa coffee, already into brain overload! :D
 
The first photos show a round boss being shaped with a radiused corner end mill.
Perhaps I'm being ignorant (I'm a HSM'er), but aren't you ending up using that end mill as a single-point cutting tool? As the boring head revolves, it's always using the same flute on the endmill to cut, correct?

Wouldn't you have been better off making a single-point cutting tool like LeVant did?
 
I assume the gear motor is on a separate mounting plate so that you may arrange it to suit needs and maybe different equipment??
I think that's something he jury-rigged to mill the conical section. He mentioned in his post that he got tired of turning the rotary table by hand on the sphere.

I also notice that the surface finish on the conical section (under power feed) is quite a bit smoother than the sphere, where he turned it by hand. No surprise, but a striking difference.

Very nice LaVant!
 
Wouldn't you have been better off making a single-point cutting tool like LeVant did?
Time..... and why bother? look at it this way, he gets TWO single point cutting tools for the price if one. ready made.

ball end mills, and radius mills make dandy form tools for lathe work too. sometimes even "free" -just save youre old junkers and trip them up for the lathe.
 
Yes Stu, the geared motor is on it's own base, and is used for several other purposes - as required. It was just clamped to the table alongside the rotary table. The piece of wood is a guide for the timing belt! - stopped it creeping off the side of the pulley.

- lazlo, I didn't have to make any bits, I started off rough turning a best fit cone in a lathe, then, on the BP, using a pointed boring bit generating the spherical form, the finish cut done with radiused bit (0.125" rad) taking about two thou off.
 
Wesg, I went out to the shop and checked. You are right, at least for my 2 inch boring head. The travel is not enough to machine the boss I needed if I put the tool in the other hole and run it off center the other direction. Probably explains why I did it the way I did. I don't know if a bigger boring head would work or not.

Still, in this land of Boeing surplus, I could have just used a left hand end mill, of which I have several, all with rounded corners. The problem here is finding end mills with sharp corners.


Stu
 
Doesn't matter how big the boring head is. It's a right hand cutter. The only way you can run it 'forward' for something like this is on an ID. Or you could lay it on it's side, but that'd be a trickier setup.

The only practical way to run forward is a left hand cutter.
 








 
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