Everybody likes "chips" according to Racey (machining thread)

[RiverDave]

Figured I'd show you all what I worked on this morning. :) These are pretty simple parts, but they are a good example where CNC could never compete in one off's compared to manual machining.

Part # 1 is a Lathe part with a little kinda 4th axis feature..

Unfortunatley I didn't take any pictures of the lathe work, but it's all pretty straight forward..

Machine the Bores 1st (Acetal on occasion will expand when you remove "ID" material after "OD") . Machine the OD, made a little manderal (thin walled part) with a very light press fit, flip the part around and bore the short (.050 x .860) bore on the backside..

After that I took it over to the mill and onto my little Sin Bar / Rotary table deal I made years back. :) Placed the manderal in the chuck and begin 4th axis work.

Total time for this part is about 2 hours, about an hour and a half if the rotary table is already in the mill setup.

The reason I have to use the rotary table instead of a traditional "spindex" or a collett master is because of the offset of the slots.. 22.5 degrees (16 places) most spindex's etc.. are every 5 degrees locking.

RD

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[RiverDave]

This is a very straight forward little stainless part that I had to make yesterday. :)

Just face, and turning some diameters, putting a little 45 on with the compound, parting it off, and then facing the backside just to clean it up a bit. :)

Total time for this part was about 1 hour (including adjusting, and indicating the compound on the lathe)

RD

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[RiverDave]

Next week, I'll have some very interesting parts to put up. A couple of small but very "intricate" parts, and a couple of bohemoth's.. :D

The material for next weeks night jobs.. ;)

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[Flyinbowtie]

RD, looks like a place fun play to play, and lots of cool toys to play with.
Wish I had those skills, and those toys.

[Phebus]

Dave, just so I can have a better appreciation for what things cost, how much money do you have there in just raw stock?

Thanks

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=562&d=1192216648

[RiverDave]

Dave, just so I can have a better appreciation for what things cost, how much money do you have there in just raw stock?

Thanks

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=562&d=1192216648

Plastic stock REALLY varies from where you get it.. You could order that big peace from some suppliers, and they wouldn't even send you a box of lube for what you'd get charged..

I bought the stuff from professional plastics. The big piece was I think 350 bucks, the one next to it was 250, and 180 or so.. The 1 1/4 stock is like 4 bucks a foot.

Don't quote me on that, I'd have to go look at the invoice, but it's pretty close.

RD

[Havasu Dreamin]

It's always interesting to see these threads becsaue my lameass couldn't do any of what it is you do with those machines...

[Phebus]

Plastic stock REALLY varies from where you get it.. You could order that big peace from some suppliers, and they wouldn't even send you a box of lube for what you'd get charged..

I bought the stuff from professional plastics. The big piece was I think 350 bucks, the one next to it was 250, and 180 or so.. The 1 1/4 stock is like 4 bucks a foot.

Don't quote me on that, I'd have to go look at the invoice, but it's pretty close.

RD
I thought that was metal (hard to tell on my computer), and stainless at that. I'm shocked at what the plastic costs, and when I hear what it would be if it was stainless, I'll probably crap.
But, it will give ma a better appreciation of why billet parts are so expensive.

[RiverDave]

It's always interesting to see these threads becsaue my lameass couldn't do any of what it is you do with those machines...

that's funny becuase everyones got their specialties.. This weekend on the construction project (pimp my house) I was the trash boy.. LOL outta my league for sure. When it comes to computers outside of the forums they are just an expensive desk lamp to me.. :D

RD

[RiverDave]

I thought that was metal (hard to tell on my computer), and stainless at that. I'm shocked at what the plastic costs, and when I hear what it would be if it was stainless, I'll probably crap.
But, it will give ma a better appreciation of why billet parts are so expensive.

To give you an idea of how much stainless costs.. Well you'd rather just crap then know how much that'd cost.. More then most peoples 1st car would be about right! :eek:

RD

[Racey]

Keep em comin dave! everyone really does 'love chips'! I need to get a chuck for my rotary table, it's a pain the ass everytime i use it to make some sort of clamping fixture, that one looks like a pretty nice size, the one i have is a 10 or 12 incher and weighs about 300 pounds, it's a pain in the ass to lift onto the mill table. But they are a must have for alot of jobs.

[RiverDave]

We have a big rotary table as well. This is something we made in house. It's a 6 inch buck chuck, mated to a sherline rotary table. Then both of those are bolted to a sin plate that we made, so we can do small standard rotary table projects, light work 4th axis projects, and then hit any angle we want with the sin plate for drilling holes, grooving or just about anything else you can think of. I can't tell you how much I use that thing around the shop, pretty much weekly. Plus I don't have to pull a vice and carry a monster rotary table everytime I want to do some little project (circular hole patterns etc.)

RD

[Havasu Dreamin]

We have a big rotary table as well. This is something we made in house. It's a 6 inch buck chuck, mated to a sherline rotary table. Then both of those are bolted to a sin plate that we made, so we can do small standard rotary table projects, light work 4th axis projects, and then hit any angle we want with the sin plate for drilling holes, grooving or just about anything else you can think of. I can't tell you how much I use that thing around the shop, pretty much weekly. Plus I don't have to pull a vice and carry a monster rotary table everytime I want to do some little project (circular hole patterns etc.)

RD

In english please...:smackhead

[RiverDave]

It holds round shit.. and spins round shit around, so if you have to drill holes in a round pattern.. I.E. a bolt circle then you don't have to do the math to find out where each hole is. You just move the drill out a few inches and rotate it around.

The round spinny thingy, that holds round parts also goes up on it's back, and everywhere in between so you can do various round type shit, at various angles, as well as horizontally..

Eh Amigo?

RD :D

[Havasu Dreamin]

It holds round shit.. and spins round shit around, so if you have to drill holes in a round pattern.. I.E. a bolt circle then you don't have to do the math to find out where each hole is. You just move the drill out a few inches and rotate it around.

The round spinny thingy, that holds round parts also goes up on it's back, and everywhere in between so you can do various round type shit, at various angles, as well as horizontally..

Eh Amigo?

RD :D

Yo comprendo.....:D

[RiverDave]

Ya know what really sucks the big weenie here.. I've got some parts I'm doing right now that are tricky as shit.. Would definately impress even a salty handle puller. Problem is they are kinda "sensitive" and I'm not quite sure how I can put them online for all to see..

Gonna have to think about this for a little bit.

RD

[Sherpa]

I've been spending some off-time hours in the garage lately making the
rest of the parts for my dive-boat custom trailer.......

I recently bought a smaller 8" horizontal/verticle PHASE II rotary table that I found on ebay... got it for 340-shipped from PA... rutland has it for 495
plus shipping + tax... so that was good....

Tooling is a killer for machine equipment...... I needed a longer 3/16" end-
mill..... the only one they had in stock that would be long enough was 19
bucks...... that's like buying a very short 19 dollar drill bit.........

oh well, I'll take some pics of progress work..... the last part I made was
from a piece of 3.5" round aluminum 4" tall. the end-result was a round
section 4" long 2.375" dia, with a square section off one side at the end
which was about 1.00"x1.00" and 1.25" tall....

lotsa figuring out the quickest was to remove material on that one, plus

finish work on it took 180 passes going only 3" each pass... oh fun.

--Sherpa

[RiverDave]

I don't think I'm understanding exactly what your saying..

180 passes? Were you making a round part horizontally in a mill?

RD

[Sherpa]

I don't think I'm understanding exactly what your saying..

180 passes? Were you making a round part horizontally in a mill?

RD

eggssactly........... lots of "heavy" material removal, followed by thinner
removal, followed by setting a "zero" point on my rotary, and doing a back-
n-forth pass every 2 degree's............ hence, 180 passes.. since a
picture is worth a thousand words, I'll do that.....

I bet you have it figured out since you do alot more than me. I could* have done alot of the material removal on the lathe using my 4 jaw chuck
offsetting the peice but I would still have to complete the finish work on
the mill horizontally.......

--Sherpa

[SuperDave013]

Figured I'd show you all what I worked on this morning. :) These are pretty simple parts, but they are a good example where CNC could never compete in one off's compared to manual machining.



the only reason my cnc lathe could not compete is because it's to busy dropping off 1,000's of them. Really dave, those parts would be very easy to do on my lathe. Heck, you had to set up that rotory table and index it in. Might as well touch off a live tool and do that right on the lathe after you turned it.

That second part is only one canned cycle with a finishing pass. A few lines of code and just look through the window (for about 40 seconds) and it pops out like a gum ball.

Nice work as always. I try to keep my cnc humming all day but I still seem to use my manual lathe every day for something.


You do know the saying don't ya?
"Every Gentleman should own a lathe." I donno who I'm quoting thou but it's always kinda stuck.

[RiverDave]

the only reason my cnc lathe could not compete is because it's to busy dropping off 1,000's of them. Really dave, those parts would be very easy to do on my lathe. Heck, you had to set up that rotory table and index it in. Might as well touch off a live tool and do that right on the lathe after you turned it.

That second part is only one canned cycle with a finishing pass. A few lines of code and just look through the window (for about 40 seconds) and it pops out like a gum ball.

Nice work as always. I try to keep my cnc humming all day but I still seem to use my manual lathe every day for something.


You do know the saying don't ya?
"Every Gentleman should own a lathe." I donno who I'm quoting thou but it's always kinda stuck.

The rotary table is a mini rotary table with a 6 jaw chuck that we built.. It's on a sin bar as well. Setting it up is literally putting a machinist square to the roll's on the bottom of the sin block and tightening the vice.

You can make that part in 2 - 3 hours via CNC? If you can, then I think I'm going to talk to pops seriously about getting some CNC equipment.

RD

[RiverDave]

Manual machining project # 50554872543285432 LOL

The pressure regulator.. (It's going to take me a day or two to get up all the pics.

1st we start off with a peace of 9 inch Acetal 1' long.

I band sawed the peace into to aproximately 6 inch lengths.. and now have to make them "holdable" in the chuck. So I carefully place the part with the straightest edge to the back, and face the front of it flat.

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After it's flat, reverse the part in the lathe and then make the other side flat and turn a diameter on the outside of the part so that all 6 jaws have a nice gripping surface for some heavy duty material removal coming up.

These are the pics with the shoulder I turned on one part, while I was doing the 2nd.

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Now I began turning the outer diameter of the part which is 9 inches.. (Acetal stock comes in oversized a bit) As you can see there isn't alot of clearance at 9 inches to the table.

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RD

[RiverDave]

When machining acetal, it's best if you remove the internal material 1st, becuase on occasion (not very often but it happens) when you "relieve" that material, Acetal can slightly expand or in some cases contract. None of these parts are super precision + - .005, so odds are it wouldn't matter much anyways.. Do to the geometry of these parts it makes alot more sense to start inside out so away we go with the boring bar(s). There's several diameters and 2 different angles internally on these parts, so there's going to be some setup changes, but I think unfortunately I forgot to take pics of them. No big deal, just changing the angle of the compound and re-indicating the tool holder straight.

After it's all said n done, we part off the part as far as we can in the lathe, and then bandsaw the rest. I'll flip the part around and then face it to it's correct length. The reason it was done this way is 1. Bandsawing parts this thick is a bitch, so I'd rather leave the part long and then part it off in the lathe to length (or close to it).. Bandsawing is to innacurate (for me anwyways) to try and get it close. 2. if we screw up in the boring operations for any reason, then we can just face the part, and bore everything deeper, saving us from scrapping a large chunk of acetal. As you can see in the 2nd picture, the outside area that is turned is about the length of the part I'm making. Giving us plenty of room for any mistakes etc..

As you can see by the end of these pictures, there's A LOT of material removal in these parts.. LOL (Filled up the bed once already)

RD

[Racey]

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9488&stc=1&d=1205258387

Everybody loves chip's..... except for the guy that has to clean em off the machine :D

At least you can't cut yourself on plastic chips :cool:

[Sherpa]

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9488&stc=1&d=1205258387

Everybody loves chip's..... except for the guy that has to clean em off the machine :D

At least you can't cut yourself on plastic chips :cool:

the only problem* with those plastic chips is that you can't sell em' back

to anybody...............

--Sherpa

[RiverDave]

Here we are starting on the other side of the 1st part.. (the OD) now if memory serves.

RD

[RiverDave]

Starting on the 2nd part, now that the OD / ID is done on the 1st.

[RiverDave]

Starting the internal features.

[RiverDave]

Starting on the OD features of the 2nd part.. and then a little "fixturing" cup to clamp the parts to the table of the mill so I can start on the various mill work on both parts.

RD

[SuperDave013]

Dang, those are big chunks.

[RiverDave]

Lets finish these parts up.. :)

[RiverDave]

The hole pattern is now in the outside, and we'll finish up the other drilled and tapped holes, and details over the next 2 posts.. :)

[RiverDave]

Now we gotta put in a kinda crazy hole in the side of one of these deals.. Luckily for me there's not any real strong fixturing require'd becuase we're just drilling a hole in Acetal. If I had to do any real machining on these angles the setup would be entirely different.

[RiverDave]

And our final holes through the side of the part is now done. :)

[RiverDave]

I will take a picture of what this complete assembly actualy does, but basically what it is, is a giant pressure regulator. We needed one that fullfilled certain criteria for lab testing, and after extensive searching realized that nobody makes one that will do what we need. So we made our own. :)

RD

[Lue]

http://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10298&stc=1&d=1205866407

What's with the chatter on plastic rookie? :D

Ineresting chit right there Dave. I'm more of a CNC dude. I can do very minor shit on conventionals. :cool:

[RiverDave]

Those aren't "chatter" marks.. They are lines from the sharp edge of the boring bar.

Those were mostly roughing passes so I was hauling ass and didn't care about finish. The camera made them more pronounced and kinda weird looking for some reason?

RD