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Fun with the Deckel punch milling attachment

TNB

Stainless
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Location
France
Hello

I thought I'd post some pics of my curentof my current "work"...
I'm pretty interested in tool grinding, and I've managed to put together a nice Deckel S11 and most of the useful accessories for that machine. Not bad, but that wasn't enough ! The machine lacked the hyper-hype original vision system.

I had an Isoma coordinate microscope laying around so I decided to machine an bracket to mount it on the S11 workhead.

The general ideal looks like this :

IMG_20190210_200138.jpg

There are a lot of reasons for wanting a good vision system when grinding tools. Firstly, for better view of what you're doing, but also to measure angles. Slight mistakes in the positionning of the tool or the wheel can affect the result drastically and without a good sight at what's going on, it's not always easy to simply *understand* what went wrong...
Beeing self taught (or still self-learning to be more precise), I know that the microscope will come in handy very often.

The Isoma microscope is rather heavy so I wanted the bracket to be as light as possible. Aluminium is light but there was no reason to keep unnecessary material anyway, so I decided to machine a pocket on the backside of the bracket.

That was the opportunity to use the x-y Deckel punch milling attachment I had bought a few years ago NOS for *** euros (some of you don't want to know the ridiculous price I paid for it but those who know me know it was not much ;))...

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Anyway, once mounted on the dividing head, you're adding five axis (!) to the little FP1 !

"Measure twice, cut once they say".... But with such a setup, the complete saying becomes "measure twice, make as much sketches as you can, try to cut once" !
I found the Deckel scribe tool to be a great help in order to check my calculations (and also take references for points I was to lazy or too dumb to find by calculation ! :rolleyes5:)

Travail - Fabrication support de microscope Deckel S11 - poinçons deckel FP1 - deckel FP3 (2).jpg Travail - Fabrication support de microscope Deckel S11 - poinçons deckel FP1 - deckel FP3 (12).jpg

I'm not familiar with contouring, and I must say that the punch milling attachment was an invaluable accessory for that kind of work. With 80mm of travel in both x and y, it really helped me switching from one point to another to make the contouring operations that required a rotation of the dividing head without disturbing the setup. For roughing first, then for finishing.

It's only after the work was done, that I realized how many clamping / unclamping and manipulations of the part would have been required without it....
 
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Travail - Fabrication support de microscope Deckel S11 - poinçons deckel FP1 - deckel FP3 (18).jpg Travail - Fabrication support de microscope Deckel S11 - poinçons deckel FP1 - deckel FP3 (21).jpg 87585110_211062266712262_8234988306643289826_n.jpg

Now it begins to look like something. The bracket will be located by the mean of three stutds engaging the three small vees on the side of the S11 workhead. From the first tests I've made, that system allows for an easy aligning of the bracket and provides an excellent repetability.

After the pocketing on the backside was done, the part still looked a bit crude so I thought why not giving the bracket a nice finish with a distinctive convex surface ? :smoking:

From my calculations, 650mm was the radius required to give the 2mm fall I wanted on both sides of the part... But how to do to machine a convex radius of 650mm ??

After imagining the most ridiculous setups, remembered reading someting about milling concave forms in a french machining book from Robert Nadreau... The book was from the 60's but I found the solution in it nevertheless....

So the 650 radius and the corresponding convex form were obtained with a single point tool offsetted of 90mm in the boring head, and the tilting of the head of the mill to a value of approx. 82°

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Speaking of wich, even if it's totally OT, I very recently discovered Instagram :rolleyes5: and I must say that I've found a bunch of interesting things about machining and metalworking.
Lots of cool pictures and videos but, and that's a big but, not that much of discussions in fact.
So for those of you who are also on IG, what are your thoughts about the merits of IG versus such a forum ??
 
Instagram v.s PM. I like both! One is 'instant' and very visual from your phone. The other has deeper, searchable mostly written information. I'm impressed with Instagram, not much flaming and trolling, etc. Guess it's the format. Guess that is why Facebook bought it. On topic, I have been intrigued by the punch-mill attachment, especially that x-y table. How does it attach to the dividing head? It would be an interesting addition to my MK4 FP-1, if it fit, and if one turned up.
 
The x/y punch-milling attachment won't fit your MK4 dividing head.

This version was (afaik) released well after Deckel adopted the SK40 standard for their spindle noses, and therefore, only made with the corresponding mounting interface : four radial set screws around a cylindrical spindle nose.

The older version MK4 version is waaaay less appealing, with only one axis and offers much less clamping surface.

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Hi Tien,

Nice work, thanks for showing it.

I have never seen that particular type of punch milling X/Y table for the dividing head. I recently sold off my MT4 punch milling attachment which I have never used, in addition to the magnifying glass/reticule and the vernier caliper/holder which mount on the dividing head overarm.

Now that I have switched to an SK40 dividing head, I'd like to watch Ebay for your type of punch milling X/Y table, which might come in useful. Do you know the German name and part number for your X/Y table?

Cheers,
Bruce
 
Bruce

I suppose you could start searching with "Stempelfräseinrichtung"... Be prepaired : either it will be over-expensive, or you'll find it for peanuts. ;)

I can't help but wonder how coutouring operations were performed before CNC.
The pictures of the punches beeing milled above are probably good examples, but I wonder what degree of accuracy could be achieved. And can only dream about the skill level of the craftmen who produced that kind of parts !!!


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Thanks for showing (here and there), very enjoyable!

...
So for those of you who are also on IG, what are your thoughts about the merits of IG versus such a forum ??

I never imagined that I'd get into social networks and have done only for IG and only for machining. It has many things to offer, though you cannot really elaborate or discuss something in depth like here. It's fun for seeing tool and setup ideas from machinists from all over the world, you certainly learn a lot.

...
The older version MK4 version is waaaay less appealing, with only one axis and much less clamping surface.
...

As Bruce explained in the past (I had never tried it so I also thought it was a single axis device), it has a slide plus the base can rotate. So, two axes really, though way less intuitive than the X-Y table.

...which might come in useful. Do you know the German name and part number for your X/Y table?
...

I have found myself in need of such a device in the past and was always envious of the Aciera X-Y counterpart, before I show Tien's post. With the X-Y table you can work with coordinates, while the old slide-rotate approach, I think, was only good for layout and that optic projector thingy.

The attachment Tien has is amazing. An even bigger one for the rotab would also make a lot of sense, for vertical head work (punch milling attachment has obvious slide travel limitations).

Alternatively (but not totally interchangeably with an X-Y table on a rotating axis) one could make do with a rotating milling head, like this one Wako milling head manual . Less sturdy but no limitations by the slide travels on the rotating axis.

BR,
Thanos
 
Hi Tien,

The brochure is helpful, thank you. The search terms I need are "Kreuzfutter" and "Stempelfräseinrichtung".

Do you have/did you use one of those "measuring brackets with vernier caliper" or did you do your measuring purely with the circle-scribing attachments? I think it's the latter because I did not see an overarm in your setup, and that would get in the way of work with the vertical head.

Cheers, Bruce
 
...I had bought a few years ago NOS for *** euros (some of you don't want to know the ridiculous price I paid for it but those who know me know it was not much ;))...

...

The ones that don't want to know got to find out before expressing their desire....:D:D
 
Bruce

I don't have the vernier caliper (nor the the riser for the overarm required for that late model of the punch milling attachment so the vernier caliper would be useless anyway).

My plan was to drill 10mm holes at every change of direction of the tool path, then join the differents points with a 9,55mm endmill, then make a finish pass with the proper offset to compensate the diameter difference between the pre-drilled holes and the endmill.

Now some of the required moves were to be made using the machine's axis, and others using the dividing head rotation.
I also wanted different wall thicknesses around the bores of the locating studs and for the sides of the part, and that added some difficulty for determining the coordinates of the holes to be drilled....

The problem when coutouring, is to end up with nice joints between radiuses and straight lines. Really, not so easy, especially for internal contouring, when some of the contour radiuses are generated by the endmill itself, acting as a form tool so as to say (because the slightest overshooting of the travel end will show immediately and at the travel end of an internal corner, the mill steps from a condition where it cuts only on a slim vertical line of its profile, to a condition where it suddenly cuts on an arc - I hope I'm clear !).

That supposed to be as precise as possible.. but I admit I'm not a math guy... All that mess led me into endless calculations and at the end of the day, once tired of drawing meaningless sketches and searching quadrangle formulas on the internet, I simply grab the scribe tool and draw the walls and radiuses I wanted directly on the part.

Then I set the scribe tool with the diameter on the tool and began searching where the heck the mysterious points were located (there were two of them I couldn't determine by calculations, around the lower bore)...
So after hours of head scratching, it only took me a good magnifier and five minutes to take the measurements right on the machine...

May be I should give SolidWorks a try... Or buy a good geometry book ? :D

Thanos : :cheers:
 
T;
Some CAM systems offer trial versions that allow use of the program with full features save the ability to "post" machine code.
When i first got my FP4NC, i got a demo version of SurfCam.
Allowed drawing in true dimensions and could solve geometry. Would not post machine code, but it would define centers of arcs and circles end points of tangent lines, relative angles ,the lot!

When i needed to be able to machine in full 3-D contouring..,replicate castings and the like, i bought the full function program....
Today i use it mostly to solve geometric problems. Not sure that i could do my work today without it, i have b3ecome so dependent on it.

I like your empirical method to solve the cutting geometry....Thanks for sharing!

Cheers Ross
 
I saw this first on instagram, then came here hoping you'd posted about it in more detail. PM very rarely lets me down when I'm searching for something.
 
Seeing this post makes me glad its you (T) and that i have graduated to the FP-NC line.....Man, not sure i could do all that anymore, nor would i wish to. Appreciate the effort, glad i don't have to go that route anymore.
CAM and a good full contouring machine makes all this so last century. :D

Cheers Ross
 
I fully agree Ross, but I'm just playing with my machines. Not making a living with them.

I already spend way too much time on the computer in my job, to be willing to do the same in the shop.
I think what I like is "cranking handwheels".

Not that I wouldn't like to have an user-friendly cad software on hand sometimes, but I should probably spend hours to re-learn how to use it everytime I'd need it (which is not often, most of the things I do beeing pretty basic).

I've been introducing to machining reading some "Deckel Technical Bulletins" I had found at an auction. I seem to recall the first one was from 1955... At the time, the most challenging manufacturing problems had to be solved by mechanical means only. Indeed, we are in 2020, 65 years later, and the evolution in machining and manufacturing processes in general is just... incredible.

Still, I have a soft spot for the ingenuity from those ancient times, that I don't have for the superior intelligence put in my computer or my smartphone. I don't find as much poetry in modern, immaculate, bright shops and plants, as I do when browsing old pictures of shops when machines were still looking like machines and not like fridges (sort of !).
Last time I read an article in a Deckel Technical Bulletin was two days ago, more than 20 years after I got them, and it was still as much enjoyable as the first time I opened it.

Can't explain why, but I suppose I don't need to elaborate for the vintage cars enthusiast you are ! ;)

In the meantime, I'm mostly done with the Deckel S11 microscope bracket...I don't really know what details I could get more into about it.
The most difficult thing was to join the different radiuses of the pocket on the backside cleanly. Not too difficult in fact, but you really gotta be focused !
The thing that got me thinking the most was how to give the side the convex shape I wanted.
As I said before, I went through the most ridiculous thoughts trying to figure out a way to machine a 650 radius with the equipment I have. But once I got the idea of using the Wohlhaupter, things were easy.


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Hey Tien,

would there be any chance for you to spend the effort and scan those bulletins? It would be an amazing read, I am also really interested in how things were done in the past.

BR,
Thanos
 
Thanos

The effort is already done.... But mostly, not by me !
The english version of the Technical Bulletins was on the CD I bought from Alan (Wrench).

It's been years since we heard of Alan but at the time, there was an agreement between him and his "customers", for keeping the content of the CD for "personnal" use...

I know the effort involved in scanning that kind of stuff and I'd prefer to stick to my word, unless he says after all this time his "copyright" is not valid anymore...
 








 
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