Silverback
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2007
- Location
- DC metro
I'm looking for ideas on how to fixture a set of cylinder heads for some machine work, including some chamber modifications and "decking" (milling the head to engine block interface flat) after some welding and other modifications. They are roughly 19x7x6" and about 25#, and I have an 8" insert style sandvik mill that I should be able to cut the decks in one pass with. I know that there are fixtures designed specifically for this kind of thing, but I do not plan on doing this enough to make it worth the money to buy or build one.
The big issue is that the deck surface of the head is not at a regular angle to any of the other surfaces (and I may want to be able to cut at 2 different angles) and I'm just not sure how to hold the head at the correct angle firmly enough that it won't move. I do have 2 of this style swivel angle plate:
http://www.shars.com/files/products/202-2310/202-2310Main.jpg
and one thing i"m considering is trying to bolt the head to one of those on each end but I haven't quite decided if there is a good way to bolt the head down (the through holes in it go through the surface that I want to machine so using them will get in the way) or a good way to get it indexed correctly/right angle/right height relative to the table without a lot of fussing/shimming. There are a few threaded bolt holes on sides of the heads that are not the ones getting machined, but I'm not sure how to use them to bolt the head down since I do not have enough room to bolt something to them and then use a traditional hold down setup (the head is about the width of the angle plates, the surface of the plates will not stick out past the sides of the heads)
Anyone have suggestions, hints or other ideas?
The big issue is that the deck surface of the head is not at a regular angle to any of the other surfaces (and I may want to be able to cut at 2 different angles) and I'm just not sure how to hold the head at the correct angle firmly enough that it won't move. I do have 2 of this style swivel angle plate:
http://www.shars.com/files/products/202-2310/202-2310Main.jpg
and one thing i"m considering is trying to bolt the head to one of those on each end but I haven't quite decided if there is a good way to bolt the head down (the through holes in it go through the surface that I want to machine so using them will get in the way) or a good way to get it indexed correctly/right angle/right height relative to the table without a lot of fussing/shimming. There are a few threaded bolt holes on sides of the heads that are not the ones getting machined, but I'm not sure how to use them to bolt the head down since I do not have enough room to bolt something to them and then use a traditional hold down setup (the head is about the width of the angle plates, the surface of the plates will not stick out past the sides of the heads)
Anyone have suggestions, hints or other ideas?