A gaggle of POTDs

[cathead]

My first POTD was to make a dovetail cutter as you can see in the foreground.
I had to see how it worked so made the tool holder behind it. To the right of the
dove tail cutter is an indexable end mill made with some scrapped square
carbides On the right in the foreground is an arbored chuck made from an old
and unused drill chuck and a drive shaft from an old garage door opener.
The electrical thing in the back is a Variac I mounted it in a home made box
made from an old computer enclosure. The handle for the Variac was made
from a concrete anchor. It was all made from stuff lying around or given to
me so no out of pocket expense except the the scrap carbides I bought on EBAY.


What's a gaggle you say? It is a flock of non flying geese numbering
at least five.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

lovely work! Is the dovetail cutter indexable? What steel did you use for the two cutters?

 

[cathead]

The metal was basically mild steel I think but really don't know for sure.
On the dove tail, I used silver solder and cemented the triangle pieces on to
the steel. It took several tries to get it so it was true at least to the eye.
It cut really well and I just started hogging away in the middle of the steel
chunk to depth. Then I worked my way sideways slowly towards the edges
doing trial fits until it is just right. I have a DTM and an Aloris tool post
and they are not exactly the same so had to test fit on both of them to
get to a point where the tool would work on either one. I didn't see much
reason to have an indexable cutter. Also the clamping would have been
a bit of a challenge. If I want to replace a carbide I can do it with my torch.
The cutters can be resharpened on the tool as well . Thanks, Matt for
the compliment.

lovely work! Is the dovetail cutter indexable? What steel did you use for the two cutters?