- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 578
I started my 1st Turner's Cube this past week and although they've been documented before, I thought I'd post a brief description and some pics about my experience.
I researched a lot of other's posts and found that I liked a fixture that a gentleman named "widgitmaster" created some years back using his backing plate and he documented his experience well.
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCTurnersCube.html
I plan on making more than one of these and so I thought a quick mount fixture sounded like a good idea. It is limited to one size though so I choose 2" because I have a 3' piece of 2" X 2" aluminum. I also happened to have a nice 6" aluminum round and so I replicated his fixture. I really enjoyed making the fixture and I gave my fly cutter a work out on this project. While I was milling the recess in the base, I decided to make it pretty deep so I could mill another 3" X 3" recess (or whatever) on top of it if I ever wanted to make a larger size cube. I would also have to make some longer clamps though.
I decided on a 4 Cube design and I started by turning the smallest bore first. Some do it the other way around. I did it this way because my good boring bar is 5/8" w/carbide insert and I didn't have the necessary clearance. I could have opened up the center hole to accommodate this but I choose to hone my skills in deep/blind boring with a 1/4" boring bit that I made. :lmao:
On the 2nd side, I got smarterer and changed my method to drilling the second bore with a .750 drill bit to minimize stock removal.
As is expected, the smallest bore is hard to inspect the bottom so I started using a mirror. I decided that a mag base adjustable mirror would be a cool addition to my tooling arsenal and leave both hands free for working. I took a chance on some things I had around the shop and found that combining an old DI mag base and a HF Helping Hands fixture, I got a quick, cheap and versatile mag base inspection mirror!
http://www.harborfreight.com/helping-hands-319.html
http://www.harborfreight.com/multipositional-magnetic-base-with-fine-adjustment-5645.html
I finished the first 2 sides and they turned out great. When I cut the third and started opening up the windows, I found that the large bore depth was a bit deep leaving a thinner than optimal margin between bores 1 & 2. In the future, I would reduce the depth of the largest bore. It's still a viable Cube though and I'm anxious to finish it. Only 3 more sides to go!
Equipment Used:
Grizzly G0602
LMS High-Torque Mini Mill
Rick
I researched a lot of other's posts and found that I liked a fixture that a gentleman named "widgitmaster" created some years back using his backing plate and he documented his experience well.
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCTurnersCube.html
I plan on making more than one of these and so I thought a quick mount fixture sounded like a good idea. It is limited to one size though so I choose 2" because I have a 3' piece of 2" X 2" aluminum. I also happened to have a nice 6" aluminum round and so I replicated his fixture. I really enjoyed making the fixture and I gave my fly cutter a work out on this project. While I was milling the recess in the base, I decided to make it pretty deep so I could mill another 3" X 3" recess (or whatever) on top of it if I ever wanted to make a larger size cube. I would also have to make some longer clamps though.
I decided on a 4 Cube design and I started by turning the smallest bore first. Some do it the other way around. I did it this way because my good boring bar is 5/8" w/carbide insert and I didn't have the necessary clearance. I could have opened up the center hole to accommodate this but I choose to hone my skills in deep/blind boring with a 1/4" boring bit that I made. :lmao:
On the 2nd side, I got smarterer and changed my method to drilling the second bore with a .750 drill bit to minimize stock removal.
As is expected, the smallest bore is hard to inspect the bottom so I started using a mirror. I decided that a mag base adjustable mirror would be a cool addition to my tooling arsenal and leave both hands free for working. I took a chance on some things I had around the shop and found that combining an old DI mag base and a HF Helping Hands fixture, I got a quick, cheap and versatile mag base inspection mirror!
http://www.harborfreight.com/helping-hands-319.html
http://www.harborfreight.com/multipositional-magnetic-base-with-fine-adjustment-5645.html
I finished the first 2 sides and they turned out great. When I cut the third and started opening up the windows, I found that the large bore depth was a bit deep leaving a thinner than optimal margin between bores 1 & 2. In the future, I would reduce the depth of the largest bore. It's still a viable Cube though and I'm anxious to finish it. Only 3 more sides to go!
Equipment Used:
Grizzly G0602
LMS High-Torque Mini Mill
Rick
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