Any of you who have been to the Bridge City Tool Works website http://www.bridgecitytools.com can appreciate the gorgeous design and execution of their woodworking tools. Many/most are CNC'ed from aluminum/brass and exotic wood. Fewer of us can afford to buy them, but they're undeniably amazing.
Many of their woodworking tools are directly usable in the machining realm, and a couple in particular look clever AND makeable by humble types such as myself.
They have a whole page of discontinued items. I don't have any problem getting ideas there and trying to re-create some of them. For example, here's an item for angles http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/other-products/discontinued/am-1-angle-master.html which looks simple enough to make. Wouldn't be as accurate as a sine bar, but for woodworking and some machining, it wouldn't need to be. Question: how would you use a computer to calculate the positions of the holes in the arms? It says it took 600,000 interrogations . . . I wonder what (specifically) the formula was that it was using? (Marv, this one's for you!) . . .
And here's another clever idea for accurately finding angles: the discontinued Angle Master Pro http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/other-products/discontinued/amp-6i-angle-master-pro-6i.html or the still-available newer version http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/amp-v2-anglemaster-pro-v2-with-shoe-kit-final-payment.html . Marv has reduced most of the above to the simplest design, which you can read about at http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/25152-Sine-bar-protractor?highlight=caliper and which you can see at http://www.homemadetools.net/sine-bar-protractor .
Somehow I'm fascinated by the incredible accuracy that some incredibly simple (albeit clever) designs can produce.
Many of their woodworking tools are directly usable in the machining realm, and a couple in particular look clever AND makeable by humble types such as myself.
They have a whole page of discontinued items. I don't have any problem getting ideas there and trying to re-create some of them. For example, here's an item for angles http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/other-products/discontinued/am-1-angle-master.html which looks simple enough to make. Wouldn't be as accurate as a sine bar, but for woodworking and some machining, it wouldn't need to be. Question: how would you use a computer to calculate the positions of the holes in the arms? It says it took 600,000 interrogations . . . I wonder what (specifically) the formula was that it was using? (Marv, this one's for you!) . . .
And here's another clever idea for accurately finding angles: the discontinued Angle Master Pro http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/other-products/discontinued/amp-6i-angle-master-pro-6i.html or the still-available newer version http://www.bridgecitytools.com/default/amp-v2-anglemaster-pro-v2-with-shoe-kit-final-payment.html . Marv has reduced most of the above to the simplest design, which you can read about at http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/25152-Sine-bar-protractor?highlight=caliper and which you can see at http://www.homemadetools.net/sine-bar-protractor .
Somehow I'm fascinated by the incredible accuracy that some incredibly simple (albeit clever) designs can produce.
