Making a micrometer stop for a Clausing lathe

On Sun, 01 Jul 2012 21:09:50 -0400, Joseph Gwinn


Any reason you can't use a regular endmill and tip the part 35 degrees
to cut the angle?

--
Ned Simmons

Or a standard, more acute angle like 60 degrees and tilt the blank 5
degrees?
http://www.endmill.com/software/Melin%20Drill%20Point%20End%20Mills.pdf

MSC doesn't like my Cookies setting.

jsw

On Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:32:48 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"


Good shaper project, too. That's how I did mine.

http://www.mwdropbox.com/dropbox/_2003_retired_files/CarrStopDis.jpg

Pete Keillor

Looks good.  But I no place to keep a shaper.  Which is a shame, as they
can be had for small dollars.

Joe Gwinn

One can, but there is no speed advantage over a straight endmill - the
setup time is the same.

 

It does that to me also.  If I just try again, it usually becomes happy.


Joe Gwinn

Don't let them razz you too much about buying that cutter, yes there are
lots of other ways to do the job but if it matches your lathe bed and you
take good care of it then it will come in VERY handy over the years if you
ever need to make a steady rest or if you ever want to adapt a old bed
turret from some other lathe onto it etc...

One thing you need to realize, is that the pointy end has no surface speed
and so you want to hog out most of the material first, using a regular
cutter, ALWAYS cuttting a small "relief slot" at the very center of your vee
first..and only cut with one side or the other with your angle
cutter...otherwise, you'll have nothing but problems and you'll probably
even break the very tip off of it before you even finish your first job...

Something that's good to know, is the exact depth of the Vee on your lathe,
this can be a hassle to initially determine, but once you've established it
accurately, there is no end to the special tooling etc that you can make up
to fit your lathe.

The way I do this is with a test block in a mill--first flycut it flat, and
then mill your vee depth to where you think it's close, but just a tad bit
deeper. Then, set it on the lathe bed and check the gap with feeler gages,
using trigonometry or cad to determine exactly how much more material needs
to to be taken off your flycut surface in able to get a perfect fit...it
might take a couple of trys, but once you get there, you can use bluing and
slide your test block on the bed, making sure you have a good ampount of
contact area on both the vee and the flat...

After that, drop a pin in the vee and measure from your flycut surface to
the pin, writing down your pin diameter and height above flat, and save this
info for future reference.

One of my old books suggests filing a sheet metal template to fit the
cross-section of the ways. Another uses sheet lead, such as flashing,
cut close to shape and pressed onto the ways for the final exact fit.
Then scribe it onto the sheetmetal.

I start with the cardboard from a six pack, scribe and trim it close
and trace it onto the sheetmetal. That works well for fitting
irregular patches into car rust holes too. A couple of magnets hold
the edges flush while I tack weld the patch

jsw

That's my thinking as well.  And the endmills are on the way, so the
razzing is ex post facto.



Yes, and I notice that people rough the groove out first, unless they
are using a horizontal mill.  If one is scraping, the slot is also
essential.

 

Clausing has published the exact dimensions of the bedway in relation to
the spindle et al, so no experimentation is needed.  They also specify
the diameter of the rod to nest in the groove, and how much the nestled
rod must protrude.

 

This sounds like a good approach.

Joe Gwinn

I would however, suggest make up a turret style micrometer stop instead.

--excellent where you have a number of parts to make and you're using of the
several aloris type holders on each one.

Also a good idea.  There was such a device for sale on fleabay for ~
$500, but I don't know if it sold.

But first, I'll make a simple stop, for the experience.

Joe Gwinn

One can, but it's very slow, with all the setup, and the fact that one
cannot use a big mill because of the 1/4" groove bottom dimension.

Joe Gwinn

On Mon, 02 Jul 2012 23:54:00 -0400, Joseph Gwinn


While you need a relatively small dia end mill to finish the sides of
the vee, almost all the material can be hogged out with a larger tool.
I'd probably bandsaw it out.

If the block is squared up carefully first, setup should be pretty
quick.

--
Ned Simmons

How?

Vertically, freehand on the table isn't too accurate and horizontally
it isn't easy to securely clamp a block in the vise at the angle the
blade must stop at in a blind cut. I've marked the line on the outside
and shimmed up the work to match the line to the blade. The work had
to be held down in the vise with extra C clamps. Those were a straight
cuts parallel to the block sides.

The 90 degree vee groove in my South Bend micrometer stop is 2" long,
a lot of thickness to saw with hand pressure. I'd cut the slot with a
slitting saw in the mill.

http://www.tools4cheap.net/proddetail.php?prod=micstop
If the casting is a close enough copy of a South Bend original there
should be enough metal to deepen the groove from 90 to 70 degrees.
It's not an exact match. Mine has 0.5" of iron above the point of the
vee groove. 0.4" remains above a traced 70 degree angle.

I think it could be clamped in a vise with the end plates and spindle
removed. The SB one has only a machined flat on the bottom for a
reference surface that you could level, or temporarily attach to an
overhanging plate that rests on the vise jaw tops. If the 70 degree
end mill is correct you'll be good with one pass but it would be
difficult to put back in the vise to make adjustments without some
fixturing.

You might even get away with adhesive-backed felt or rubber in the vee
groove since the mic stop doesn't have to slide accurately on the
ways.

jsw

On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 11:16:37 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"


Freehand on vertical saw. How close I'd dare cut to the final
dimension depends on the saw and my eyesight. On my saw (a 65 year old
DoAll ML) I'd be comfortable with leaving .030 to .050, but that's
more a function my patience and eyesight than the saw's capability.
This saw does have a weight assisted cable feed, but I wouldn't bother
setting it up in this case. I *would* make sure the saw had a coarse
blade installed, but the blade change would take longer than the cut.

DoAll did make a lighted magnifier accessory for more accurate sawing.

This is an example of the time you can save with a well-tuned vertical
bandsaw.
http://tinyurl.com/cud9evh

--
Ned Simmons

I'll take your word for it. The only good industrial vertical bandsaws
I've used were available for all employees, including managers with no
clue of the hardness of the rebar and lawnmower blades they were
cutting. New blades dulled in a day and were left on as subtle
punishment.

jsw

On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 13:21:51 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"


If you have any interest in what can be done with a good saw, DoAll
used to print a couple of small books with lots of examples of jobs
and pictures of 40's era factories. Many of the parts would be made
nowadays by CNC milling, laser cutting, or EDM.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290731437154

--
Ned Simmons

I assume that the people who need to ask aren't that well-equipped, so
I focus on problems I've solved with hobby-sized equipment.

I can run the bigger ones but I don't have the experience of others
here. For a while I was the designated blade-weldor for a Do-All.

jsw

On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 18:32:17 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"


The 16" DoAlls like the Metalmaster, ML, etc. are not awfully big. The
ML is a 3/4 HP saw with a footprint about 36" square. They are pretty
heavy; probably 800+ pounds. The 20" saws with hydraulic table feed
are much bigger overall than the 4" deeper throat might suggest.

--
Ned Simmons

I read a bandsaw book that described how to use the half-circle plate
with the serrated notch, perhaps it was one of them. I thought I had a
Lindsay reprint but can't find it.

jsw