Form Tools are Cool

[Janderso]

Grab a piece of 4140 or O1, A2, W1 or what ever you have that you can do a ghetto heat treat on and have fun with it.
This is a 1/8" form tool at a 5 degree angle.
It's O1 that I heated up cherry red, dunked in oil, cleaned it up to see the color. (kind of a dark straw?) Then I put the piece on a surface plate with some 600 wet sand paper to get a sharp edge.

 

[pontiac428]

Jeff, did you start with a drilled hole, or did you grind the radius using a radius dressed wheel?

 

[Janderso]

Jeff, did you start with a drilled hole, or did you grind the radius using a radius dressed wheel?

I centered the spindle over the work, center drilled first then drilled the .125" hole.
The work was at 5 degrees of course. I used an end mill to mill off the end until I had half the .125" radius.
I then turned the piece to mill the 30 degrees for the clearance angles.
Is that clear as mud??

 

[sdelivery]

I agree. I have a few but most people have never experienced one. They used to be common before cnc's became more common.