Drilling/tapping endholes in long rectangular bar

Big metal dealers here in Germany offer this job ("end machining") for reasonable prices. They cut your material and chamfer and/or drill and/or tap it. They don't care how long the material is, they have dedicated horizontal machinery thatfor. Admittedly, this will ruin _your_ job. :-)

Nick

You could make a fixture to fit the end of the part, maybe lock in place with brass tipped set screw, use a drill bushing in fixture and drill with a hand drill. (of course if tolerances allow this type of activity).

Alex

What numbers are involved in "semi-production basis"?

For the size of the holes involved, a custom drilling jig clamped to the bar and a hand held drill would suffice. A similar device would do for tapping as well. No matter what you use, mill or by hand, clamping will feature..

Tom

Why not just bolt a fixture or vice to the saddle and put the drill bit in the chuck (or collet). Then you can use the saddle to move the part into the drill bit. You don't need the steady rest, or the tailstock.

PV:

A simple drill jig for a hand drill might be easiest. Say a 1.5 X 2.25 X 1.5 deep block with a milled pocket slightly larger than your 3/4 X

I knew you could use a horizontal miller as a lathe.

But of course as you say, you can improvise a horizontal milling machine out of a lathe.

Jim

Clamp the bar in the lathe's tool holder. Simple, eh?

--=20

-JN-

I like this one, and may use it someday, if faced with a similar quandry. It occurs to me that if you are using a big enough Aloris toolpost, you could clamp it right in the toolholder with the setscrews, and ashim to prevent screw marks. Probably want an outboard support but it sounds like a 15 minute set up. hardest part would be picking up the tailstock[depends on lathe]

you could try a woodworkers dowelling jig. Clamp on the bar and use hand drill.

This is one job that might really lend itself to using a woodworker's ShopSmith. These can function as a horizontal drill press and the table top is aluminum which should be fairly easy to fixture. Two of them with the proper fixturing - one to drill, one to tap - if speed becomes utmost.

(top posted for your convenience) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

If the hand drilling doesn't support your volume, perhaps a simple indexing fixture on a vertical drill press.

While you could use some type of jig on a press, the length of the workpiece could make unsupported movement a pain. Since it's just aluminium, you could buy some cheap Home Depot special press and drill a hole through the middle of the table. You may not want all the load on one side of the table as it could start to move, given that most drill press tables will rotate for odd setups.

Regards,

Robin

Mount an angle plate and a vice that hangs over the side of the bridgport table. Hope you have a dro on the bridgeport to find the hole positions otherwise a simple drilling jig will work.

John

Assuming a cheap drill press with a swivel table is available, I would be tempted to fixture a piece of angle iron vertically alongside the table and another on the floor. Set the bar in the angle, clamp and drill/tap. Don Young

According to Robin S. :

A lot of the cheap ones will also tilt the table sideways, so as long as the maximum length of workpiece plus drill or tapping head and tap will fit between the headstock and the base, you are fine. Just mount a movable vise on the table, tilt it 90 degrees to the side, clamp the workpiece and crank back and forth between the two places where you wish to drill and tap.

BTW -- you might want to look into using a thread forming tap instead of a cutting tap for this, so you don't have to deal with the buildup of chips at the bottom of the tapped hole.

Good Luck, DoN.

Looky here

After all these *stellar* suggestions..... My buddy wants to get rid of a.... BP!! W/ power feed in X, AND a right angle head, next week!!! Just found out! And chromed ways.... and likely cheap! ( and a Hariq surface grinder, and a 9x12 Kalamazaoo *automatic* cutoff bandsaw.... goodgawd, my heart is palpitating....)

But, the suggestion of simply putting the work in the lathe tool holder pert near buckled my knees!! Super-elegant! And I'm sort of kicking myself, cuz I did something quite similar to this some time ago, but for small rod cut off w/ a jeweler's saw mounted in a

I also like the "dedicated cheapie DP" idea, w/ the bar going *straight up the middle*--perty neat.

Also, the Palmgren link from John&Michelle was really neat, altho it doesn't quite solve this problem here. Neat lathe attachment, which I might very get, iffin it don't break the bank. Does anyone have one of these? Comments?

I think this is how it's going to play out: For now, the lathe tool post idea is Da Bomb--will be doing this *this week* When the BP comes, if the lathe is busy, I'll proly set up the BP for this. If the BP gets busy, I"ll proly do the cheapie drill press idea, and have it dedicated to this operation.

Many many thanks to all!

We have a customer who bores the insides of their carbon fiber shafts this way. Nothing more than a variation of a horizontal boring mill.

Later,

Charlie

That can be up-graded a little by taking the C clamp hold down that is a 'universal' clamp - and making a direct connection to the tool post (if you have one) or the Cross table directly. Made sturdy they function nicely.

Mine (not a Palmgren) is a tool post attachment - I take off my compound and add it.

I have my Ball turner set up in it for nice adjustments.

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

John&Michelle wrote: