Another introduction to the Mill class is on the schedule. If your committee needs a simple, small metal or plastic part to repair a committee machine and you can furnish a drawing of it (hand drawing would be OK), and further you don’t have an ASAP requirement, it may be totally feasible for the class to made your part.
Small brackets, spacers or bushings are good candidates for an intro class, gears, bearings, and complex 3 D shapes are not.
If the part can’t be finished in a single class, or if it requires lathe use; then it may be finished up in a subsequent lathe or mill class. It may take 2-8 or more weeks to get the part.
We could use a small version of one of these in the wood shop. Our current one keeps breaking. We would be happy pay with a couple awesome cutting boards.
This may sound crazy but blacksmithing would like to mill the faces of a couple of old anvils. We only need to take a couple of thousandths off of the top AFTER we do a little welding so maybe we can do this in another class. Where exactly is the part one self-study course for your class?
We could use some flat stock clamps for the Sherline mill - similar to step block clamps but without the steps. Threading a round head bolt into the underside (at the heel) enables keeping the clamp in a toe down position without using step blocks and the height can be adjusted easily.
I’ve shown them on a tooling plate but it works just as well with 10-32 bolts in the T-slots.
The good news is that nothing about the dimensions matters - except for the diameter of the one tapped hole. It can be made with whatever stock is available. And pretty much everyone who uses the Bridgeport will want to tap at some point, this is a good way to demonstrate that also. I used 10-32UNF because everything else on the Sherline uses 10-32, but that’s also entirely up to your discretion.
I’ve attached a couple notional sketches that were driven by the scraps I had laying around but they could be any size you want.
And before you point this out (you know who you are), I know it’s not toleranced accurately!
Very doable. After the skim it’ll immediately work-harden the surface when using it again. I suspect on older anvils is ha been work Hardened to about 3/8th of an inch.
Just need skims to get the top level parallel to the table.
Thank you Chris. Blacksmithing, metal shop and machine shop seem like a natural. I’m interested in making some tools for blacksmithing. For instance making this:
We could use a small version of one of these in the wood shop. Our current one keeps breaking. We would be happy pay with a couple awesome cutting boards.
Well, this is more advanced. But Nick has had Haas classes make things like this. If I am not mistaken, in his next class he is planning to make a brain wave analyzer. And not just any run of the mill analyzer either; but a unit capable of detecting very weak signals. This might interest you.
The Moodle study and quiz are accessed by going to the member portal, down to learn, then onto machine shop, and Bridgeport mill study material.
In principle, the anvil could be faced on the mill. I would be concerned about the weight on the mill bed. Currently, the mills are not bolted to the floor and could become unbalanced and tip over. Also, the fixturing of it to the bed would be a challenge.
Most of the anvils are in the 120-200 lb range. The ones in the worst shape are about 120 lbs.
There is still a lot of investigating, welding and grinding to be done before the milling but thank you for the feeback.
Hub rings might be a lathe and mill project. Would these be flat in the z axis? How thick would these be? If they are to be thinner than about an 1/8" that be more challenging. The rings are nearly 3" in diameter; I am fairly certain that we don’t have any round stock that big in the MS scrap heap. So would you furnish the stock?
I have an even better idea (IMO). Comparable clamps for the Shapeoko XXL - which IIRC only has the flimsy wooden ones that came with it. I made my own and haven’t sacrificed them (yet) to the committee. These are useful for holding the user’s personal spoil board in place.
EDIT: Never mind. Since I now know that @nicksilva donated some clamps, there’s no need to make these.
These are much longer than the Sherline ones because the T-tracks on the Shapeoko are far apart (approximately 11.36" apart, centerline to CL).
Notes about my design …
I have a pile of 5/16 threaded knobs so I designed around that. I think that the Shapeoko-provided hardware might be 1/4-20. You could still mill the slot 5/16" wide and use a 1/4-20 bolt.
In order to use 5/16-threaded knobs I had to mill the bolt heads a little narrower and shorter. My bolt heads are .425 wide and .15 thick/high.
Again - dimensions aren’t critical. I’ve provided a step on one end to more securely hold flat stock, i.e., the spoil board.
This puts then at he same range as the horizontal cut-cross feed rotary table.
If the table is centered and the anvil centered, it would only have to move about 5"-6" off center. I don’t think the anvil surface is greater than 12" long.
Might be a good motivator to finally get the knee mills bolted down.
