Broaching w/Cheater Hole...

Ray C

Ray C

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The business of broaching came up in another thread so, I'll post a little trick I've been doing which takes 90% of the pain out of punching a square notch in the side of a round hole. I drill a little cheater hole first. Make a cheater hole about 2/3 the diameter of the width of the notch to be cut, as close to the edge of the hole as possible. Pics are shown with little left to the imagination.

The demo here was with aluminum (which is like butter) just to show the technique but, doing this with a 3/8 or 1/2 slot through steel -that's a different matter and this makes easy work of a common task and greatly reduces breaking your (expen$ive) notch cutters.

Enjoy...

Ray

BroachCheaterHole.JPG BroachCutting.JPG FinishedBroach.JPG
 
:thumbsup: Sometimes it is the simple and little things that can make all the difference.

Thank you
 
LOL... Any excuse will do :rofl:. -And, I don't think it ever ends :nuts:.

That said, a big vise is a handy thing too and for the size of broach used in the demo, I would normally do that in a vise but, a thread about presses brought the issue up so I happen to migrate to using the press. For bigger broaches, you will need a press of some sort. Just make sure it opens enough to hold the longest broach cutters (about 8" long, BTW) workpiece and fixtures etc. That's where benchtop arbor presses can fall short but my real issue with them, is the support column getting in the way of things. -Thus, I decided to build that medium/small sized hydraulic unit.

PurpLev said:
Thanks... now I KNOW I'll need a press (will it ever end?) ;)
Click to expand...
 
Expanding on Rays neat trick a bit --

If you dont have broaches - and a lot of us dont! - then you can get by with using just the drill to make a means of holding. Get your two pieces assembled and carefully align the drill bit in the center of the line between the two, and drill a hole with half in one piece and half in the other.

In the pic below, I needed a key in the long shaft through this metal brake I built. I used a 3/16" drill bit and pinned it with a piece of 3/16" drill stock. Actually its best to drill a 'test' hole and make sure your piece of "key stock" will fit into the hole snugly - many times a drill bit will go oversize.

MetalBrake004.jpg

MetalBrake004.jpg
 
Pacer I use much the same method often, except I thread the hole and use a set screw vice a pin. It stays until needing to be removed for disassembly.

Certainly there are times only a broach will do.

Steve
 
Pacer -- Yours has a name just as broaching does. Yours is a "Dutchman".

"Billy G" :))
 
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