Setting up Shop Questions - from an NZ learner

[DJP]

To deflect chips when fly cutting, I use a piece of heavy cardboard with notch cut out. It can be placed in any position on the milling table to do the job. I also tried a small piece of canvas with a magnet sewn into a hem. I can place it anywhere on a machine to stop chips from flying too far.

Being overly neat and tidy is not my style but a sweep up after every machining job is necessary and keeping chips from flying too far is a good idea.

 

[joco-nz]

Started a little project to make a pair of toolmakers clamps. I'm currently doing the first one which is quite a learning exercise and will no doubt result in the second being much faster and better finished.

Material is 1215 steel, 1/2" square since that is the stock I could source. Each jaw is 110mm long, the all thread rod is sized M6 and is 304 stainless. The handles (next step and next post) will be cut from 1215 rounds, 12mm.

The plans and styles can be seen on the excellent site by Harold Hall. I'm following the alternative style.
http://www.homews.co.uk/page260.html

The two top jaw bars chucked up in the monster 4 jaw. Really need to get a smaller one of these. Squashed a finger mounting this thing up when it slipped and dropped onto the wood board protecting the ways. My sea faring ancestors would have been proud of the descriptive language used re said chuck at that point. :rant:
You notice between pictures I flipped the jaws around to get a better grip before commencing. All a very good exercise in consider strength of grip on the work and how to center work on the 4 jaw.


The next three photos show machining a 6 degree taper to create a nice rounded nose on the top jaw. It would have been simpler to put it in the mill at an angle and just made a flat angle. But I think the rounder taper looks nicer. A slightly more stylish detail if you will.






And where I am up to. Its starting to look like a clamp I would say. A bit of a polish up and it will look pretty dang good.
Next step will be making the knobs and putting a grip pattern on them. As I don't have a knurling tool yet I'm going to have to get a little more creative on that front. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[rodw]

It looks very nice!

Didn't you buy a BXA tool post? Didn't it come with a knurling tool? Mine had 5 tool holders in a set and one was included.

 

[joco-nz]

It looks very nice!

Didn't you buy a BXA tool post? Didn't it come with a knurling tool? Mine had 5 tool holders in a set and one was included.

Got mine from Machinery House, no knurling tool, but a selection of standard 201 and 202 holders.

 

[rodw]

Well, that was bad luck then...

 

[joco-nz]

Well, that was bad luck then...

Not too worried. Plan is to make one of these: http://www.homews.co.uk/page119.html

More machining practice. :thumbup:

 

[bazmak]

Having made a pair of these clamps in the apprentice school about 55 yrs
ago and lost them many years ago I had in mind to make a pair.
Must say I like your method of turning the taper in the lathe.Looks great
its not something I would have thought of but will keep it in mind
You have certainly come in leaps and bounds since the beginning of this post
Congrats barry

 

[joco-nz]

Its been a wet day here on Saturday with some other jobs getting some attention. But I did mange to get some machine time.

Pic #1 & #2:
First off I needed to be able to put a chamfer on the ends of the knob blanks. Up until know I have only sharpened the steel on my Diamond Tool Holder. Given that style of tooling and the supplied jig rather simple stuff. Today I embarked on my first free hand grinding of some of my HSS stock. So with a 10mmx10mm bar of HSS I set about making my very first, from scratch HSS cutting tool. Now for you old hands this is probably all pretty trivial stuff, for someone who last tackled metal working pre High School some 30+ years ago, its a case of "holy poop, I hope this works". So taking into account the numerous videos watched and some real life advise and demonstration by a kind soul I set forth. These pictures show the results. And I am pleased to say it worked admirably. Main shape of tool ground on the white wheel and the used a fine oil stone to get a final cutting edge. I remembered reading that its only fractions of a millimetre that accounts for the real cutting edge and that stoning beyond that is pointless, so I did that, saved a heap of time and seemed to get a good result. See Pic #3.



Pic #3:
Blanks with chamfered edges using home ground HSS tool.


Pic #4:
Then it was on to making the knob that is closest to the clamp noses. This knob will be trapped using a pan head screw. It was drilled through and tapped to M6x1 thread using a bullet nose tap on the lathe. Power tapped at 60rpm with lots of cutting fluid and it was a breeze. Using nice/quality HSS taps makes a huge difference to the crappy carbon steel Frost set from Bunnings I got early on.
Then using a parting blade sunk it in 1.5mm to get the groove for the trapping pan head screw.
Then a bare kiss from a countersink on both hole entrances to make a nice clean finish.


Pic #5:
This is the high knob at the back of the clamp. It will end up with a hole through it for a tommy bar. This one was blind hole drilled to 11.5mm. Bottom tapped, again under power on the lathe with lots of fluid by with the chuck holding the tap spinning free and using my hand on the chuck to provide resistance and an effective torque break. Once the tap bottomed out on the hole it the chuck just turned in my hand, giving plenty of time to kill the lathe. Then the lathe was put in reverse and the tap backed out. Nothing under stress, all at slow speeds, no drama and a lovely straight and clean bottom tapped hole.


Pic #6:
Over view of current state of play. Next is to machine the knobs for a grip profile. Not having a curler yet I am coming up with alternatives to this problem See pic #7 for plan render of what I am looking to do.


Pic #7:
Render of the grip approach for these knobs.

 

[joco-nz]

Managed to steal some more shop time this afternoon and got the knobs pretty much done, bar a hole to be drilled.

Pic #1:
The making ... slow and a bit messy. I started playing with the suds I had. Now I have to clean it all up. Really got to get the air powered mister gadget built. Or figure out a really effective way to clean up suds.
Anyway, basic procedure was a simple form of dividing using a hex block designed for ER32 collets and just turning it around against a reference to ensure it was always in the same relative position in the vice.


Pic #2:
However the result was pretty pleasing. A little bit of work with some emery cloth/paper and it will be so shiny it will frost your eyeballs. :thumbup:

 

[rodw]

Thats very nice James. When I've polished stuff, I've used wet and dry down to about 1200 grit with some kerosene and finish it off with some Autosol metal polish. Not sure if you get it over there but check the Car Parts shops. (eg. Over here - Repco, Supercheap, Autobarn etc). I've got a coffee tamper I made out of Stainless and an Aluminium handle that still gleams after a few years of use.

 

[joco-nz]

Thats very nice James. When I've polished stuff, I've used wet and dry down to about 1200 grit with some kerosene and finish it off with some Autosol metal polish. Not sure if you get it over there but check the Car Parts shops. (eg. Over here - Repco, Supercheap, Autobarn etc). I've got a coffee tamper I made out of Stainless and an Aluminium handle that still gleams after a few years of use.

Yup - Supercheap seem to have it:
http://www.supercheapauto.co.nz/Product/Autosol-Polish-Metal-350g/345178

 

[rodw]

It also comes in a tube. It lasts for ages so no need for a pot unless you have to.

 

[Cogsy]

It also comes in a tube. It lasts for ages so no need for a pot unless you have to.

I don't know how many mag wheels I've polished from my one tube that I bought 26 years ago, but I still have a small amount in that tube and it still works as well as the day I bought it. Oh dear, I just made myself feel very old...

 

[joco-nz]

Well the clamp is built. I'll not bore everyone with the construction of the second clamp that needs to go with this. It will no doubt be quicker, smoother and with less "oh crap" moments.

I have included a little gallery of pics of the final unit. I have not yet embarked on a blueing or black oxide process. I'll trial those on some test metal before doing anything on the clamp(s).

So a little commentary ...

Pic #1 & #2:
Front and back pics. Back knob is loctited on with the permanent stuff which needs to be heated to 200c plus before it will release. So if I decide to black oxide things it won't be hard to remove for that process to be applied. You should also notice that I have drilled the back knob for a tommy bar. Since 4mm allen keys seem to breed like rabbits in my garage the hole is sized for such a bar (4.5mm diameter). A little detail, but important astetically is that the hole enters and exits at the circular part of two opposing flutes. I have to setup a handle for my countersinks so I can use them as a deburring tool for these holes. At the moment they are a little "raw" on the edge, which I will fix. You can also see the pan head screw holding down the forward nut. I'll do a close up of that in a later pic.



Pic #3 & #4:
Just a front view with the jaws parted so you can better see the shape of the jaws at the front of the clamp. Also a close-up to show the top jaw profile. You could do this profile top and bottom and for the "traditional" clamps where the knobs and threaded rod are on opposite sides that is what you would do. For this style clamp keeping the bottom jaw square just facilitates being able to use the clamp in an upright position and being able to then use a t-slot table clamping system to hold the toolmakers clamp down at any point along the bottom jaw with no voids to worry about.



Pic #5:
Close up of the back knob with the tommy bar hole aligned to the end of a flute.


Pic #6:
Showing the use of the 4mm Allen Key as a tommy bar on the back knob.


Pic #7:
A little gratuitous perhaps but a closeup of the pan head screw holding the forward knob captive. This is a self-tapping 6g x 9mm 304 stainless screw with a thread diameter of about 3.4mm. The hole drilled is 1/8" (3.175mm) to a depth of about 7.5mm, the screw is shortened on the grinder and carefully worked into the hole to avoid stripping off the head. Yes I probably should have used an M3 or M4 pan head screw however I only had gunk metal M3 and M4 taper taps which I would rather not used on something like this. I still have the option of going down the M4 path if I need to but this screw method seems to have worked ok.

 

[Roboguy]

Very nice work James! You're motivating me to try and squeeze in a bit of shop time. If work would just ease of a touch...

 

[bazmak]

Same here,brought back memories of a pair I made in trade school 55 yrs and
the basic design has not changed so for nostalgic reasons I have just started
to make a pair which I will post when done.Question Jono how do you take
such brilliant phots that highlight your good work so well ?

 

[joco-nz]

Same here,brought back memories of a pair I made in trade school 55 yrs and
the basic design has not changed so for nostalgic reasons I have just started
to make a pair which I will post when done.Question Jono how do you take
such brilliant phots that highlight your good work so well ?

Nothing too special. Just make sure there is a background to help highlight things. I'm using a clean rag from a rag bag i bought from bunnings. Anything white, cream and non-shiny will do. Also look for a place with good lighting from multiple directions.

Camera wise I'm just using my phone. Now it's a rather good phone. iPhone 7plus. So a good camera does make a difference. On a few photos I use the phones built in software to post process a few pics. Just play with the light/shadow settings to get a better image with more definition and contrast of the subject. That might sound complicated but its literally 20 to 30 seconds playing with a single slider to get the effect i want. And that is only on a couple of shots out of 6 or 7.

 

[bazmak]

As I said on my thread,try fitting both knobs to each side much better
that is the design intent.The clamps can be then rapidly wound open and closed

 

[joco-nz]

As I said on my thread,try fitting both knobs to each side much better
that is the design intent.The clamps can be then rapidly wound open and closed

yes I know they are fitted to one side and that was deliberate per the Harold Hall design and observations on that style. I intend to make some pairs that follow the classical design as well. First rule - there can never be too many clamps. :thumbup:

 

[joco-nz]

Thanks to everyone who commented or wandered by to have a look.

As these little gadgets seem to hunt in pairs I thought I would round out this little project with a final pic of the matching pair of 110mm toolmaker clamps made per Harold Hall's design (THANK YOU Harold) following the "alternative" style. I will make more of these in different sizes and mixing the styles as one thing woodworking taught me and I see no reason for metalworking to be any different "There can never be too many clamps!" :thumbup:

Cheers,
James