Any good ideas on fixturing this one? Mild steel, .125 dia. with a .187 button head, about .75 long. We need to cut a slot for small flat tip screwdriver in the customers existing parts (10,000). Probably multiple slitting saws cutting multiple rows of parts, but any good clamping ideas? End opposite head has a female thread (2-56?). The part is called a 'binding post'. Dixon
Dixon:
Depends on what type of machines and tooling you have. If you've got a horizontal mill with an arbor you can do the multiple slitting saw thing. If you've got a right angle 40 taper milling head/tool you can do them in your VMC by holding them upright in your vise. If you're limited to a VMC without a right angle tool, you can hold the horizontally by machining a couple of pieces of alum. bar stock to fit between two vises (thick enough to not bend in the open spaces between the vises), drill and plunge bore a series of slip fit holes along the bar stock near the edge (leaving room every inch or two for tapped clamp holding holes), mill away about 1/4 of the diameter of the holes, get a piece of steel bar (for stiffness), glue a strip of rubber to it, drill some clearance holes in it so you can screw it to the alum. bar to hold your parts by the 1/4 diameter that is sticking up. You can make two alum. bars and two steel/rubber clamps. That way when one is in the machine cutting the other one can be unloaded and loaded. Put your slitting saw in, and machine away. If you have a couple of Bi-Lock Kurts you can make 4 sets of bars/clamps. I've just given the bare outline of just one way of holding your parts.
Got a sketch of the part?
"Dixon" wrote in news:g4SdnZzko7wmEojUnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
If this is going to be an ongoing repeat job you might want to buy a used "screw slotter". Some makers include Behr, Warren, Waterbury Farrell, and Strachan.
These things can do 100's of parts per minute automatically and should be fairly cheap used.
Another good way is to use an old lever feed horizontal mill like a Nichols I worked at a place where we had one rigged up with a 5C collet chuck that was pedal operated (pneumatic). The operator would chuck a part then pull the lever which moves the table via a gear rack. While she was doing that she would drop off the last finished part and pick up a new one with her free hand.
The trick is to work the pnuematic logic so the chuck only opens when the table is against the return stop. Otherwise sooner or later the operator will have a brain fart and step on the pedal when the part is into the saw.
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