POTD was improving a 58 pc. Clamping kit bought off eBay for $47 delivered. I should have learned by now that you get what you pay for . . . The storage rack is plastic which will be OK, but the rack only has a top hole for the studs so they set crooked in the rack. Not a big deal as they won’t fall out and hit the floor if hung on the wall, but it would bug me every time I’d look at it. So, POTD . . .
Cut a Delrin blocks to fit in the base of each of the 3 stud compartments. I picked up a Bridgeport with a 2-axis CNC a short time ago and have been having a ball playing/learning it. I put the rough block in the mill vise and ran the table to each end of the plastic in rapid mode which gave me the X-axis end points. A smarter person would have used a face mill or end mill wider than the ½” plastic (used a ½” end mill) to face the plastic. But what the heck, gives me some practice on programming the CNC.
Started the program by setting the feed rate (15 ipm), then moved from the left end to the right end. At the right end point, moved over in the Y so the end mill would overlap the opposite edge, then did a return path to the X-axis starting point. Last step was to move the Y axis back to the starting point which put the table where it originally started. It’s kind of handy to start it up and walk away. Flipped the plastic and machined the opposite side so the length was the proper width. Band sawed the blocks to rough length and cleaned up the ends manually on the mill.
I measured the hole locations for the studs from an edge which gave me 6 (X, Y) coordinates. The outer smaller pockets are mirrored with the studs centered in the pocket, so the same block works on either side. The middle larger block is mirrored also; 6 holes on the left match the 6 holes on the right.
I entered the 6 coordinates in the CNC program and let the computer take the table to the proper hole locations. Started with a spot drill, then hit the START button on the Anilam Crusader which indexed the table to the next hole, then repeat through the 6 holes. Kinda slick to let the machine do the work although with my 2-axis CNC I have to manually do the drilling. After spot drilling, changed to the ½” drill bit and repeated the program which naturally stepped through the same hole locations. Lastly, changed to a countersink to put a lead in on the holes so the studs drop in easier.
The larger center block had the first set of 6 holes done, then the block was turned 180 degrees. The Y’s are different from front to back so one solution would have been to flip the part over and put the RH side to the left. The holes would be on target, but the countersinks would be on the wrong side. So, spun the part 180 and put the ½” drill bit back in the chuck. Manually moved over to one of the previous holes and adjusted X and Y until the bit dropped through. That gave me a new Y offset (happened to by 0.165” not that it matters). Set the Y-axis to -0.165”, then zero’d Y which would offset all of the Y-axis dimensions in the program down 0.165”. Ran the program and drilled, counter sunk away.
You know, this CNC can come in pretty dang handy for repeated jobs! Sure, I could have just manually moved the table to each coordinate using the hand wheels or DRO, but it’s a nice convenience once you get through the learning curve.
The blocks on the bottom of the rack work great. The chamfered holes help them fall into place and they stand nice and straight.
As an aside, little bit disappointed with the clamping kit. The T-nuts all had through holes which could lead to a busted table in you’re not careful. Fixed that by taking a cold chisel and damaged the bottom of the threads in 6 places. Also, a ½”-13 bolt won’t thread in. Makes sense when the stud/nut thread is M12 x 1.75 . . . yup, a dang Metric clamping kit . . . Looks like I’ll be buying some ½”-13 T-nuts.
Bruce