machine wedge in UHMW

"Karl Townsend" wrote in message news:4727814e$0$68450$ snipped-for-privacy@auth.newsreader.octanews.com...

Two sided sticky tape it to a chunk of something. Grab that with the vise, set it to about a 3 1/2 degree angle with a protractor head from a combination square. Cut it with the end of a endmill--carefully. Close enough for a wear strip.

Bill

Cut a 1/8" wide slot at the proper angle in a piece of scrap wood, insert the UHWM in the slot and trim the end on a table saw.

"Karl Townsend" wrote in news:4727814e$0$68450$ snipped-for-privacy@auth.newsreader.octanews.com:

Karl, is this Valu-Guide stuff? Is it the 'slip on covers' used with aluminum channel, or the "crimped" style with the U-shaped channel? If it's the slip-on type, you need a piece of the aluminum rail to put it on, pin it (2mm dowel thru the narrow side) then machine it. If it's the crimped type it really wouldn't matter which way you machined it with the EM, you are going to get fuzz from hell anyway with UHMW. A good utility knife is your friend there.

Valu-guide website:

Double-sided tape + belt sander.

I'm glad I asked. All the ideas were better than mine. Wish I had a decent table saw to do Ned's suggestion. I'll go with double stick and try the belt sander first. If that don't go, I'll try the double stick tape on an angled scrap piece in the mill.

Anthony, this is just a rectangular wear strip riveted to the cup conveyor on the FMC weight sizer. Must be 200 or more pieces, two broke off yesterday and ripped up some cups. I got 198 more that are 30 years old and need TLC; guess I have a winter project.

Karl

"Karl Townsend" wrote in news:4727acd1$0$68457$ snipped-for-privacy@auth.newsreader.octanews.com:

Take a gander through that solus catalog. You might find something that would work better and be more easily replaceable. We use a ton of this stuff for conveyor guide rails, and many other uses.

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:07:02 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Karl Townsend" quickly quoth:

Build a small wooden jig and slap that puppy into a vise with the UMHWPE strip in it. Plane it down with a Stanley #65-1/2 plane in about twenty seconds. No machinery necessary.

Any low-angle block plane will do, but make it ScarySharp(tm) first.

If you must use a machine, try a belt sander. Quick and easy. Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Use a vacuum chuck and use the end of a VERY sharp cutter. ...lew...

Carefully made aluminum mold with pushout pins in it and 2 (+ wastage allowance) gallons of Moglice???

Mark Rand RTFM

I don;t know the tolerance or what tools you have available but for short runs I'd make a short wedge to prop the end up and double back tape to hold the 24" pieces to the milling machine table (clean the oil off the table) and use a fly cutter or end mill. Depending on what you have available you could do table wide pieces and then chop them up in 3/4" strips with a shear.

Or, fabricate a 24" long piece tapered enough to give the 2" taper on the end.

Bruce-in-Bangkok (Note:displayed e-mail address is a spam trap)

Lots of good suggestions posted already. You can also do nice work on this material with a router and some fixturing. If you end up wanting to mill the part for some reason, I would suggest a straight-flute carbide router bit rather than a standard end mill, and use the end of the bit, not the side. Much less tendency to lift the material. If I were doing just a couple of pieces, I would try the belt sander as well, with a back-up block of wood. Watch the heat, though, UHMW has a fairly low melting point, and a worn belt (or too fine a grit) will smear it in a hurry.

If he could afford 2 GALLONS of Moglice, he'd already have retired! Do you know that stuff costs about $50 an ounce?

Jon

According to Karl Townsend :

Ouch!

In the Bridgeport, I would use the side, with a rigid backing strip behind it, and the milling vise pivot base setting the angle.

However, what I would be more likely to do with my tools is to use the 7" metal shaper with the feed stroke reversed, and the cutting tool reversed so it cuts on the draw instead of the outbound stroke. (This would mean tying down the clapper box, too.) Still backing behind the UHMW of course, because that is really too thin to stand on its own.)

An alternative tool which I might use would be the horizontal mill with a wide conventional milling cuter (fat saw blade). :-)

Good Luck, DoN.

I have 100 grams that cost 74.62 delivered. I have a feeling a hazmat charge shoved that price up.

Wes

exactly what I was about to post. why do you need to mill plastic? a tablesaw in good condition will do the job in under 2 minutes. watch your fingers!

You've got plenty of good suggestions here, and I've done lots of similar things in the past, so that'll probably work for now. However, one upgrade you might want to consider is a UHMW tape (maybe

30 thou thick or less) glued to an aluminum backing. I've done a fair bit of work where an all-UHMW part would have lacked the rigidity necessary for the part, but it needed the lubricity. Thus tape+metal.

Well isn't a table saw a business expense?