Fun machining!
- Thread starter boltfluter
- Start date
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
Very nice lugs. You ever come up with a tool to hold them straight if not using a pin?
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
He probably uses a belt sander.
TAJ45
Silver $$ Contributor
Nutz n bolts don't necessarily equate to what is required to achieve or the importance of maintaining normal machining tolerances.
CNC?, ..IMO, machining hint for making em faster...if ya want...
I'd use SS stock that was slightly 1/8" thicker than the lug thickness desired..parallel machine sides of stock for steel hard jaws 1/8" deep ...to hold each side firmly in Kurt vise hard jaws on parallels. just make sure your carbide rough and finish profilers clear the hard jaws by .010" ...then drill and interpolate lug holes to size, drill pin hole, and profile the outside of all 5, in each Kurt vise. Then flip the 5 over and "peal off" the backs in profiled aluminum jaws...done... lugs complete, unless you want to parallel grind for perfection.
But it really doesn't matter if you're enjoying yourself, keep on doing it your way....after all having fun machining is a rewarding endeavor, and you'll always be learning... with every project.
I'd use SS stock that was slightly 1/8" thicker than the lug thickness desired..parallel machine sides of stock for steel hard jaws 1/8" deep ...to hold each side firmly in Kurt vise hard jaws on parallels. just make sure your carbide rough and finish profilers clear the hard jaws by .010" ...then drill and interpolate lug holes to size, drill pin hole, and profile the outside of all 5, in each Kurt vise. Then flip the 5 over and "peal off" the backs in profiled aluminum jaws...done... lugs complete, unless you want to parallel grind for perfection.
But it really doesn't matter if you're enjoying yourself, keep on doing it your way....after all having fun machining is a rewarding endeavor, and you'll always be learning... with every project.
Ray,
Considered the way you're thinking, when pondering this job. Trouble is this material is very, very hard to cut in my horizontal saw. As in watching grass grow slow. So, I decided to use the mill to do the cutting. I would personally rather stand by the mill than hunched over at the saw! Lol. Actually quite efficient this way, relatively speaking. Looked into getting parts water jetted to size as well, ridiculously expensive though. Many ways to do this job.
Paul
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
I think a friend's sheet metal shop could laser them. Expense?? I've never seen a need for a fat recoil lug.
Nice work!! What kinda vmc are you using?
Laser is slightly more accurate then water jet. Water jet does not create the "hard egde" laser does.
For small batches your current method is probably just as cost effective
Laser is slightly more accurate then water jet. Water jet does not create the "hard egde" laser does.
For small batches your current method is probably just as cost effective
I am no machinist by any means but I think Paul's work speaks for itself. The man has never posted pics of anything that didn't look like a work of art!!
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
@X-Caveman has a shop with all those tools that could cut them at least to rough size way cheaper than starting from a blank
3Sigma
Silver $$ Contributor
You still get a kerf on laser cuts, and likely some slag as well, so it isn't perfect. But anything less than 1/2", I prefer laser over water jet.
Each has its benefits and drawbacks, but I would hesitate to spec a .002" slip fit on a laser without the ability to tweak the laser geometry. It can be done, you just have to have the right laser.
Neither is as nice as a milled part IMHO.
Skedaddle Shooter
Gold $$ Contributor
He apparently wasn’t trained very well
Yes, it depends on a lot of things,.. how you do a machining job, like the tools you have available on hand, or what you're willing to purchase, a profit needed for a job, or just a hobby, a few parts in the run or over a million. You can buy flat bar and shear to length. Or spend 3/4 of a million and lazer cut them by the millions. A programable saw, cuts to length while you're away machining. But on a low budget project no high dollar machine tool is practical...consider a metal scrap yard to save money or hobby work for your material. I have one 1.5 miles from my home, they have lots of industrial steel, SS, aluminum, brass scrap, some with PO numbers on them so ya know its quality material at scrap prices...We still have a fair amount of machining going on around here and two rare metals facilities...titanium is available, but the other stuff is highly controlled no zirconium, halfnium, tantalum, niobium, available to the general public. ATI Wah Chang as it's now known, was the heart of the materials used for nuclear weapons, submarines, aircraft carriers, power plants and water reactor for electricity, and super conductor technology all developed here by the US Bureau of Mines. Machinist jobs were everywhere...than it all faded and robotics and computer chips came into being. Some of the areas are highly contaminated with radioactive waste, nothing lived in the stream running out of the settling ponds ...but downstream we played around it as kids, if you could stand the strong chemical smell. Zirconium fires are hell on earth white hot blinding intense heat, and water only enrages it as it breaks down the water into hydrogen and oxygen for a flame thrower burn. Chemical fire extinguishers at available at every machine, and sometimes we'd have more than one fire a day.... everyone is a trained firefighter...if ya have to call 911 it's too late, as it happened one day the whole shop burned to the ground and everything in it...and the fire department is less than a mile away...it was too dangerous for them and they carry water, when the found out it was a zirconium fire, they just let it burn out half a city block. Interesting times to be a machinist, it was the 8th most dangerous job in the world, and a lot of things and chemicals banned like 111 triclorethelene we use by the 55 gallon drum, daily.
I always looked for more expedient ways to do a job because we had to complete world wide for contracts... we started no computer operated machinery, then to back to college and everything computerized including the job and the employee.
If your ever in Eastern Washington go
visit the Hanford nuclear reservation, check out the B reactor it's the one that made the material for the Nagasaki Bomb, in 1945..it's has been open to the public for a number of years as a museum...it looks really old fashioned by today's standards. The N reactor has been torn down and was in operation during the cold War, that's the one we machined the parts for refueling, and make weapons grade plutonium. Being a machinist was not my first choice, it was a job, and I need to pay bills, it hard, long hours, weekends no problem (married to the job half the guys divorced). dangerous. But working as a team, and completing a job, smoking the competition, that was rewarding, it was more like a alpha male combat fire team, no one would be considered politically correct, sometimes ya have to stop a physical fight, but stand together against all, and forget about the altercation, until next time. we had a nickname others assigned....cold War machinist. Times change, the computer industry turned the survivers into more educated, civilized machinists, with tons of safety compliance and behavioral rules to adhere to... F##k that, usual reply, my attitude was adjusted 24 yr ago, and I'm ready to rock and roll.
Now, an old mild mannored, semi house trained machinist, I have my own machine tools, and time for building rifles and other parts for my shooting & other hobbies ...machinist, is... "the best job in the world"...just like a tank commander, once said, to his crew.
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