Need help making a small hex bracket

I need to make 4 7/16" hex brackets similar to this but I don’t need to buy 100 of them. I’ll be using them to mount this roller to a 2x4 for a project I am working on.

I’m assuming it’d be a pretty straightforward cut with the plasma cutter but I am not trained on that yet. I’d greatly appreciate any help on this and can meet up tonight or tomorrow after 7 to work on it.

The PlasmaCAM should make short work of that (once you get the kinks worked out). It’s not terribly precision, so that makes it easier. The hardest part, in my opinion, will be machining the hex. That part, you don’t want any slop in, and should be cut with a broach (here’s a home-made one, for example) which we do not have capability for @ DMS except the arbor press (which would work just find if you have/make the broach).

You could also template for the manual plasma cutter. No training required (I believe), but please ask if you don’t know what you’re doing.

That’s good to know. Thankfully I don’t need absolute precision for this job and good enough should work fine. I’m thinking the manual one should do the trick and I can eyeball the hex outline and play with it a bit to get a decent fit.

Also, I’m assuming slop is left over residue from the cut or does that refer to something else? Like I said, total precision isn’t necessary as the brackets will be mounted to a 2x4 which is in turn mounted to some track rails. The rollers are pressing down on wooden stencils while I spray paint them so a little wobble hopefully shouldn’t be a problem.

1 Like

That is an easy project for plasmacam. You can file the kerf to make it fit better if needed. Do you have a (cad)drawing of what you want?

1 Like

I meant slop as in “play” or space between the parts. Usually you want that hex to be a pretty tight fit or it’ll wallow out the hole (or worse, ruin the axle).
The undesirables left from the cutting process is slag or dross.

If precision is not such a big deal, and you already have a CAD of it, PlasmaCAM would make quick work, as Tim said.

I don’t have anything yet but I can quickly toss something together on fusion360 or draw up an svg in inkscape. Which would be the easiest to use on the cutter?

Fusion360 would be best. You need to save the file as a DXF to cut it on the Plasmacam.

You’ll also want to test out dimensions from f360. I had to make sure my part wasn’t in metric before going to the plasmacam with it.