[nlancaster]

Never expect anything less from widgitmaster when he is machining.

Beautiful work as always.

[Donny M. Carter]

Very nice Wigitmaster! BTW, that CNCzone coffee mugs seen plenty of cups from the looks of it!

[widgitmaster]

Very nice Wigitmaster! BTW, that CNCzone coffee mugs seen plenty of cups from the looks of it!

Thanks Guys!
And yes, that's my favorite mug and my third one sense 2004 too!
Widget

[palenn]

Nice work, widgitmaster! I'm curious why you used the right angle head rather than the vertical spindle?

[widgitmaster]

Nice work, widgitmaster! I'm curious why you used the right angle head rather than the vertical spindle?

No reason, other than it made a kool video (chair)

The bore centerline will follow the tables travel, not the squareness of the attachments. So the only thing that is critical is dialing in the vise, and seating the part flat!
Widgit

[mountaindew]

Very nice work!
Got a grin out of me with the hole saw plug.
Your pictures and write ups make good reading!
md

[widgitmaster]

Thanks MD!
This morning I setup the mill to cut the slots for the clamp, a 6" diam, 1/8" wide saw worked perfectly but noisy !!



After the all the parts were milled & deburred, I brought the completed assemblies to my friend's shop He was very pleased with them!
Now I need to order the plates to attach the T-Slot plates to the existing z-axis slides!

[widgitmaster]

The plates arrived for the top half of the dust boots, so I milled an equal amount off the two long edges. Next I setup the mill to drill a 3" diam hole using a hole-saw, then I bored the holes to exact size (80mm). Then I moved over to the opposite end, and drilled a smaller 2" diam hole using a hole-saw followed by the boring process. Now I need to put the rotary table on the mill, using the same fixture block as before. But this time, I re-cut the top surface and made a smaller diam protrusion. Now I can hold the plats on the smaller bore, and mill a radius on the outer end. Then I made a 2nd diameter on the fixture to hold the larger bore.

With all the radius's finished, I put all the plates on an old 80mm spindle body. Then I clamped them together with a parallel clamp. and put the stack in the vise with a 60° wedge under the stack. Then I put the 6" diam x 1/8" saw on an arbor, and positioned the saw inline with the center of the 80mm diameter bore. Next I slowly fed the saw into the stack, cutting a slot through to the bore.

Now that the plates are slotted and deburred, I made a quick fixture to hold the parts at 60° so I can drill, tap and counter-bore a holes for 1/4" SHCS. All that is left is to make the hose barb and get it welded in place over the 2 1/2" diam bore. The magnets are on order, and the lower pieces will be made of plastic on a CNC router. The material for the hose barb's is on order, so I get a chance to work on something else
Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Saturday I made the mounting plate, and attached it to the t-slot plate with 6x screws & 2x dowel pins. Next I assembled the spindle mounting brackets, and put the whole unit on a scale to see how much it weighs! One spindle weighs 9-Lbs, and the unit weighs 18-Lbs. A total of 45-Lbs! It looks like I'll be making a counter-weight system next!

[widgitmaster]

Today I made the barb fittings for the top of the dust shoe. then I pressed them into the top plates.

[Donny M. Carter]

Very nice work! I need to come down to FL and be your apprentice!

[widgitmaster]

We made a little progress on this project, and it should be up and running in no time!

[bill south]

Widgit;
I guess I kind of assumed that the three spindles were for making triplicate parts for each run. It just dawned on me that a primary use would also be for t different tools using offsets in the code. What made me think this was the close spacing between the spindles. I guess if triplicates are made they must be fairly small with this setup. But regardless, as usual, first class job! Sierra Hotel!
Bill

[widgitmaster]

Thanks Bill!
This setup is designed to triple production of small parts! The spacing can be changed as larger parts are run off!
Widgit

[widgitmaster]

So far I've made the tops of the dust shoes out of aluminum, and installed three 6mm diam magnets in each. My friend supplied the materials for the bottom section, some kind of white cast acrylic! Looks like Delrin but cuts like Acrylic! Then I drilled the larger holes in the plastic parts, and installed the three magnets. It took a .004" press fit to keep the magnets in place!
Now that the tops & bottoms are attached via magnets, its time to cut the perimeter and groove to hole the strip-brush (also supplied by my friend)! So I decided its time to put a vise on the Big Monster, so I drilled and tapped two 3/8-16 UNC holes in the aluminum plate! Next I stoned the bottom of the vise smooth, and placed it on the Monster. Next I clamped a dial indicator to the Z-Slide, so I could dial the vise in parallel to the x-axis. Then I made a fixture plate on the big mill, and put it in the vise with a pair of parallels under it! Now I have to dial in the center hole and set Y & Z axis to zero. The fixture has corresponding holes, so the magnets can align the plastic in the fixture. All I needed was a pair of cap-plugs to clamp the parts down.
With the part on the fixture, I used the z-setting block to set z-zero on top of the parts. No sooner were the parts cut, my friend stopped by and took them before I could snap a photo But he did leave me more plastic blanks for another set, so I'll grab a picture on them !!

[CarveOne]

Man, the tediousness of all this high quality machining work must really be wearing on you by now. It's impressive for us to look at though.

My crappy machining work isn't much to look at and it wears me out when I do much of it. I machined two small adapters for my neighbor yesterday that allowed him to hook up the carburetor linkage on his '23 T-bucket hot rod build. He just needs to have me help him install a wiring kit for it and it will get licensed. Reading wiring diagrams isn't his best thing to do.