What's new
What's new

Pics of Setups???

chainz

Aluminum
Joined
May 8, 2008
Location
Seattle
Being relatively new to the machining addiction, I'm curious about set ups, and fixtures used to secure the work to the machine.

Was looking for some examples, pics, etc. of some unusual set ups. Ways to get the work to the tool.

Watcha got!!??!!??!!

~Chainz~
 
Here's one I did for machining the body of some carburetors so I could install ball bearings on the throttle shaft.

Getting the throttle shaft bore centered on the rotary table:
sawsupportcasters004.jpg


Enlarging the bore for the ball bearing:
gardencart001.jpg


I'd take a cut by spinning the rotary table, lower the table to check the dimension, and move the table for the next cut.

This is a fixture for machining the faces on a dodecahedron:
000_0189.jpg


The final result looks like this:
Dodecahedron_3.jpg


Roger
 
Using a 12-inch stroke shaper, this was the hard way to reduce an 8" hunk of cast iron into two 4" square hunks. When I first posted this there were a lot of raised eyebrows, but I got the thumbs up from Toolmakerjim, so that was good enough for me. Plus, it was well-blocked and I took baby cuts until there was enough flat surfaces to provide more secure clamping. I dont need no steenking vise !

set-up.jpg


Here's the finished steam cylinder block above being bored to size on my trusty SB10L. It's bolted through the back onto a sacrificial aluminum "slave" plate that was in turn mounted to the dog-drive plate, and trued up in situ. The lump on top is a counterbalance weight, added as an afterthought when the original set-up started vibrating too much.

finishbore-endview.jpg


Below is an aluminum bushing that had to be bored dead-nuts to size and 1mm ecccentric with the finished OD, and square to the ends. The bushing was used as headstock liner to make a height-adjustable spindle on an ID grinder. PM member Bob-o made the spiffy 2-piece fixture that was used to sandwich the bushing between the two end-caps, mounted to the faceplate on a Schaublin 150 (aka "The Migraine-o-Matic")

sleeveboreclose.jpg


And my personal favorite:
The ram and head from a Bridgeport, strapped to the table of a Van Norman 22L, milling the base casting of a machine being retrofitted for ballscrews.

DSCN9311.jpg
 
I love that Bridgport pic.:D

Here is another
100_2275.jpg


The part is not in the vee blocks in this shot but it was boring some long pipes.

A little rig for cutting off ejector pins
100_4132.jpg
 
My favorite project part one

I made a mennorah for a fdear friend of my wife. The base was 12 inch x 1.900 x .940 thick, but having no 1 inch brass stock, I had to improvise. The first step was to lap as smooth and flat as possible two faces of the 1/2 thick material, which was done on an older surface plate and wet/dry sandpaper and checked on another surface plate with prussian blue to assure the flatness. Then I had to pressure clamp the pieces together in a way that I could drill and tap holes for 10-32 cap screws as absoultely exact as possible. here is the drilling set-up. The trick was to get both pieces together as tight as possible to look like a single part. This included drilling to mount a raised center candle. I used a small torque wrench to put in the screws to join the parts, do not remember the pressure though, but wanted it all exact as humanly possible.

7fec4205.jpg


Then I fly cut the edges and milled the ends. Tram of the head was absolutely important in this step, as you can see the back and front edge cut of the fly cutter in the tool marks. I needed to prevent a "bowling" effect of an even slightly off trammed head because i was so uptight about this job. The alternative was to spend the $300.00 for the 1" thick bar, which I did not have cash flow for.
DSC03044.jpg


Milling small radiuses on a part, the base, a method I learned to get a real fine match
DSC03055.jpg
 
Part 2

Nine little heads were turned on CNC using a special bored clutch collett to keep everything exact in length and true to a previously turned thread. This was absoultely important as the pieces had to fit seamlessly with no gaps to the base

Turnings
bba66ecc.jpg


Base
DSC03060.jpg


I hade to drill and ream the heads, the shape of the parts was hard enough to clamp that I made a special delrin split bushing to prevent scratching the parts, and i had to use a collett to assure concentricity for each part
DSC03067.jpg
 
Three and done

Engraving was done on my tree mill using a dual matched kurt vise set-up with matched nylon parallels (as matched as sheet nylon can be), indicated in perfectly parallel on the face in X and Y to assure the engravi9ng dpeth, I believe it tiook 45 minutes to get within .0002 over the 12 inches

DSC03074.jpg


DSC03084.jpg


Matching the heads in after some 1000 and 2000 grit sanding of the base and heads

DSC03070.jpg


Finished product, no gaps of seams
DSC03090.jpg
 
This is a fixture I made for cutting 2" OD thinwall aluminum tubing to precise lengths with the ends parallel to each other and perpendicular to the centerline.
000_13112.jpg


It's marked so it always goes into the chuck in the same position to eliminate chuck errors. A bolt through the spindle holds it tightly against the chuck.
000_13122.jpg


The tubes are used between the endplates of winch drums. Any error would be magnified by the larger diameter of the endplate.
Mar12Drum4.jpg


Roger
 
Seeing some of these are spurring some much better ideas than what I previously had.

Not knowing what is possible, at this point, has been one of my limitations.

Thanx, Chainz,
 
Seeing some of these are spurring some much better ideas than what I previously had.

Not knowing what is possible, at this point, has been one of my limitations.

Thanx, Chainz,

I find the opposite a lot of the time, not knowing that "it can't be done" or "can't be done that way" has freed the brain from a single approach...

Ryan
 
Here is a a shot of decking a Buick 455 block. The engine was intended for a Willys pickup- but the truck was too far gone to mess with. I never built the engine.:( Another project "temporarily" suspended.
 

Attachments

  • drama 019.jpg
    drama 019.jpg
    77.9 KB · Views: 1,271
  • drama 015.jpg
    drama 015.jpg
    82.6 KB · Views: 1,064
  • drama 017.jpg
    drama 017.jpg
    85.9 KB · Views: 1,125
Nothing really special here.:D I suppose if you really stretch the concept, the blocking and strapping of the mounts were considered as to not pull them off the engine block.

This thread's getting elaborate; let's not loose sight of the basics:nutter: (just kidding)
 

Attachments

  • Mercedes420SEL- Engine 089- Smaller.JPG
    Mercedes420SEL- Engine 089- Smaller.JPG
    67.4 KB · Views: 1,507
I find the opposite a lot of the time, not knowing that "it can't be done" or "can't be done that way" has freed the brain from a single approach...Ryan


With me, it's more seeing how someone else has done it, either spurs on other ideas, or flat out IS the solution I've been looking for. As far as limitations, I put WAY too many on myself, so getting validation that the hair brained scheme I came up with and dismissed, actually is a viable option, makes getting it done that much easier.

This thread's getting elaborate; let's not loose sight of the basics (just kidding) :nutter:

Actually, I was looking for a thread that just had a collection of setups, be it elaborate, to the most basic, or even all the way down to, ummm, my skill level.......:o
 
Here's a basic one, although the workpiece is a little tricky to clamp

One photo shows the hole to be drilled, minus the clamp

The piece of angle is a mystery item from the odds and sods collection - I can no longer remember when and why I originally made it.
 

Attachments

  • P3111929 lo-res.jpg
    P3111929 lo-res.jpg
    93.6 KB · Views: 1,138
  • P3111928 lo-res.jpg
    P3111928 lo-res.jpg
    93.5 KB · Views: 951
This is only slightly more elaborate; a case of making a toy lathe do a job a little beyond it.
I needed to bore and reface the downfeed spider hub for my Arboga drill-mill, and my big lathe was undergoing renovation.

The chuck on the Myford is way too small to do this safely, but I was able to use the cross hole for the sliding downfeed handle to pull the item back into the chuck jaws-(the Arboga has only one handle with a knob at each end. This means it can be slid up or back out of the way when milling)

A pin through the cross-hole (one end of which can be seen in the photo) passes through an eyebolt I pinched out of a turnbuckle.

The eyebolt's hex nut bore against the back of the jaws, inboard of the scroll scallops. I tightened the eyebolt to by turning the workpiece.The nut was captive inside the chuck, being too big to swing inside the scroll upstands on the jaws.

It's one of those things harder to describe than to do. I have virtually no memory of how or why I did it, which makes it just as well I scribbled the note explaining the setup which appears in the photo.
 

Attachments

  • Arboga DownFeed Boss m-cing lo-res-1.jpg
    Arboga DownFeed Boss m-cing lo-res-1.jpg
    94 KB · Views: 1,228
This one is even less remarkable, but it does show the (two legged) spider handle on the Arboga slid out of the way, as mentioned in my last post. I know, spiders are supposed to have eight legs, or at least three, to be statically determinate.

This was just another kludge to fill in for the absence of the bigger lathe. Instead of turning a round-bottomed groove, I milled it with a ballnose cutter.

This sort of approach has obvious benefits when a piece can't swing in your lathe or is too lopsided to balance- or when it can't be held securely enough to withstand the centrifugal forces.

What's more the cutting forces tend to be less with milling than with turning as they're shared among multiple cutting edges.

The other two things which might be worth noting: there's a misconception afloat among Arboga owners that the head only tilts 45 degrees each way. Sure the graduations only go to 45, but the head is happy at 90. This may be true of some other mills or mill-drills.

Secondly, the temporary 'backplate' shown on the chuck is medium density fine-grained fibreboard (known locally as customwood). It was originally intended as the top of a three legged stool, but if failed final QA.

If it's kept dry I've found this material to be OK for light use in machining setups. Certainly it's quick and cheap.
 

Attachments

  • Arboga head at 90 deg -2 lo-res.jpg
    Arboga head at 90 deg -2 lo-res.jpg
    90.4 KB · Views: 1,489
Another one on the Arboga: this shows how one of many ways a self-centering four jaw chuck can be used as a vice.
 

Attachments

  • Kaito Rear Step m-cing-2 lo-res.jpg
    Kaito Rear Step m-cing-2 lo-res.jpg
    94.7 KB · Views: 1,064
Another Arboga setup, I sometimes forget that it's not necessary to set up a chuck every time you need to hold something round, and maybe I'm not alone in this.

This bush needed teeth milled at the end like a dog clutch.

If the V blocks can sit on the vice base, and the work is at least 3/4 as long as the blocks, this is a secure setup. A chuck is more secure, but this is secure enough, and a real timesaver.

The reason the near V-block is spun thru 90 deg is that the small groove is too deep to be used on both blocks.
 

Attachments

  • DSC07068 lo-res.jpg
    DSC07068 lo-res.jpg
    96.7 KB · Views: 1,113








 
Back
Top