Has Anyone ever made a Angle Plate??

[Ageless]

Hello All;
Has anyone ever made a steel angle plate from scratch?
This something I am attempting and have run into problems.
I would appreciate comments from others, however please no comments regarding
just go out and buy one.
I am treating this like a project.

 

[tel]

Hmm... a bit hard to advise when we don't know what the nature of the problem is. Can you elaborate?

 

[Richard1]

I made one years ago, seemed to work ok. Can you tell us what the problem is?

 

[Maryak]

Ageless,

I've made a couple from angle iron. Give us a clue about how we can help you. ???

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Ageless]

Thank you all for replying!

Due to me living in SE Asia shipping costs are a killer for getting items sent to me like this from America or Europe!
With this in mind I decided to try and make up a Angle plate, it seemed easy enough.
I cut up two pieces of fairly thick steel (12mm+) made a 90 degree jig for holding the items then using a arc-welder
lay down a couple of beads of steel on the inside of the 90.
I decided not to put in a web as I wanted to put this item into my milling machines vise and use it to hold the angle plate while milling.

I tried first of all to clean up one of the edges that where cut with my cut off saw, as the edge stood fairly high off of the vise
I went with a light surface cuts. All went well with just a bit of vibration, I deepened the cut maybe to .25mm, the cut started,
then Bang, the tool hooked on the plate and was thrown to the side, the steel weld was bent over and one of my carbide inserts
in the cutting was chipped off. I removed the plate from the vise and straighten it back to 90 degrees and stopped the project.
If trimming up the edge causes this much problem what would happen when I would attempt to cut the slots in the angle plate?

My thoughts are putting is a couple of webs for support, this will of course help with rigidity but that means the vise is now out of the question. Harold Hall recommends using the table and vertical squares, based on his comments and the size of my T-slots I will need 2" round stock which I do not have. I have only a small lathe (S2) and do not have a steady rest as of yet, so facing the ends will be a issue using only the three jaw chuck for support.

As a novice it seems that one takes one step forward and two steps back!

 

[portlandron]

If you cooled the parts off with water after welding they may now be hardend. This will also happen after using a cutting torch if you use water to cool the piece. If this is what happened try heating the piece red hot and let it cool slow.

 

[Ageless]

Hello;
Thank you for that comment, it is something that I could try!

 

[hammers-n-nails]

i dont see how your angle plate could ever be rigid enough to use if you cant get it machined without it flexing, id go for the gusets. tack weld some sort of support structure to the angle plate so you can bot it to he table then cut it off with a saw or other non-heating method.

 

[PaulG]

Ageless, This sounds like the angle plate was clamped at the bottom only, vertical edge unrestrained on one side, or both.

Paul

 

[Ageless]

Hello Paul;
That is correct, the height of the jaws is maybe 2 inches or so so that left the top of the Angle Plate unsupported.
I could try and find some large pieces of steel (4" wide x 6" long) and insert then on the out side of the Angle plate
to give added ridgiity or move away from the vice and back to the bed and use reiforcement of the plates with gusets
or as I called them webs.

 

[PaulG]

Ageless, Check your messages, Paul

 

[Ageless]

OK, now a follow up on what has happened as of this date.

Please bear with me as this is a bit long!

I ground the weld off of the angle plate and separated it back into two pieces.
I then reworked each piece as indicated below:
I installed one of the plates into my vice and used a larger piece of steel plate to support the long ends (Reducing vibration).
I then aligned the end so that it was straight and milled that end, I then flipped the peace 180 degrees and milled the other end.
I then turned the plate 90 degrees and milled the other side and then flipped it over 180 degrees and did the final milling.
When completed I marked out the slots on each plate and milled them out.
I never experiences any sort of problems this time, however I used only a HSS bit and not the carbide insert cutter that was used before.
I will on good advise grind both edges that are to be welded to a 45 degree angle, insert it back into my 90 degree jig and weld it up.
I will make sure that the piece then cools down slowly.
When this is done it will face the out side faces so that they will be at 90 degrees to each other.

I want to thank everyone for there input, this has turned into a reqarding experience after the initial frustration! :big: