Pledge: Lathe Milling Machine Combo Tools

From London Hackspace Wiki

The Problem

A super new 3-in-1 is installed at the Hackspace. It comes with a basic set of tooling:

  • 125mm 3-Jaw Chuck
  • 1-13mm Drill Chuck & Arbor
  • MT4 & MT3 Steel centres
  • Lathe Tool Set
  • Milling Drawbar
  • 4-Way Indexing Toolpost
  • Combined Vice/Compound Slide
  • Lathe & Drill Chuck Guards

We will, however, require many more toys serious tools in order to create our projects.

Note that it is traditional to make some of the tooling. It isn't efficient in terms of time (there are many sources of cheap chinese-made tooling which, although sometimes dreadful, can often be better finished than home-made) but it's enormously valuable in teaching how to use the tooling, machining techniques etc.

Good candidates for home-made tooling are:

  • More vices (especially wide-opening ones)
  • Stub arbors (things that hold a simple cutter in the mill instead of a chuck)
  • Horizontal arbor (holds saw blade or horizontal milling cutter in the lathe)
  • All sorts of random single-purpose attachments - ball turning devices, tap/die holders etc.

There are kits available for some items - see Hemingway for a (fairly expensive) example. these have the advantage that the hard bits are already made, and the instructions are a bit more comprehensive than just a drawing.

The Hardware

We need :

  • fly cutter, for making nice smooth surfaces (already exists?)
  • t-slot cutter, for making work-holding surfaces
  • bigger drill bits, to start bore holes
  • a block for raising work to be milled (absolutely required)
  • an independent 4-jaw chuck: 4-jaw chuck (Ordered by Russ, £90.53)
  • Adapters for existing tooling: Rough estimate of £10 per adapter?
    • What adapters are required ?
    • I'm thinking things like MT2/MT3 sleeves or whatever is required to make minimill cutters fit the 3-in-1
  • angle plate, for things that aren't completely made of right angles
  • vertical rotary table, for gears and other fun things (can we use the existing one vertically?)
  • brushes to clean up with, chained to the table!
  • box of hair-nets

Other items will be added to this list over time. If you want to add an item, please check first if there is an existing tool that could be used via the adapters.

Please indicate next to your pledge, if you would rather contribute to a single item, otherwise your contribution will be spread across the list of all items.

Pledges

Running total: £316

Approximate target: £9000

Paid: £150

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