Lathe/Mill tooling cart

[Firestopper]

More progress on the drawer rollers. The large rollers got drilled out with larger holes and internal spacers where turned and pressed in. This keeps the side load off the inner/outer bearings when torqued contacting only the inner races of bearings. The rollers now roll smoothly. The rear smaller rollers got hub/spacers added and internal spacers as well, same smooth action. I loaded the drawer with weight (80 #) and noticed slight flexing to the rear sides when fully opened. I decided to break a scab sheet to double the wall thickness of the rear and and 5-1//2" past the rear corners. This will also stiffen the rear roller mounts as well.


Laid out inside drawer dimension and subtracted thickness x 2 (.200") and broke the scab sheet.
It fit nice inside the drawer.

Welded up the drawer corners and welded in the scab sheet and drilled the roller mount holes.

Edge (.200") was skipped welded and really stiffened up the rear section. The TIG was set to 150 amps, 1/16" E-3 tungsten electrode used, filler rod was 1/16" 4043 and Argon CFH set at 15.

Here you can see the one piece scab sheet doubling up the rear and corners. The front will get a 1/8" aluminum face once completed.

The small hubs will be drilled,tapped and countersunk screws will secure them to the sides. These hubs/spacers will keep the rear rollers aligned and snug to the track.

Hub spacers are 1" CR x .250 drilled/reamed to 3/8",turned down to .450"x.325" and will mount from inside and secured from the outside portion of the drawer.

View from the outside with .125" spacing to contact the inner bearing race. The three countersunk screws will thread into the hub spacer
from this side. I plan on using the same method to drill/tapping the hub as I did for the front rollers.

Thats all folks. Thanks for looking.
PS, I would have been further along, but had to replace the TIG torch and coolant after hunting down replacement parts.

Turn and burn!

 

[Firestopper]

I got the rollers working smoothly. This phase has taken some effort but in the end works pretty well.
The little rear hubs give a ton of support and fit snuggly to the double walled aluminum drawer.
Had to use 8-32 screws to secure the hubs for clearance but no shear load is on these screws as the bore they fit into carries the load. The screws simply secure the hubs to the drawer.


The rollers mount from this side (outside of drawer) so a flush mount was required.

This Zephyer tool was used to control the depth of the countersink. They are used in the aircraft industry intended to be used on hand held drills. I've had this one for many years and the tip can be replaced for different diameter/angles.

The depth can be adjusted by loosening the rear knuraled jamb nut pulling back on the large collar (spring loaded) and turning in/out the smaller caged collar. The small graduations are in .001" for in/out adjustment.


This shows the tip retracted (relaxed).

This photo shows the tool being pushed (thumb) exposing the amount set for countersinking.
The caged end helps square up the tool as well as access to change out the tips.

I wanted to share another tool, It's a Israeli made de-durring tool used on sheet material. I recently purchase it for under 30 bucks and it works fantastic. The trick is not apply too much pressure as it will bite on the softer aluminum. Excellent for sheared material that leaves a razor burr waiting to get you, asked me how I know haha. Works on ferrous and non-ferrous materials.

The cutting discs can be rotated and flipped to maintain quality de-burring.
A few light passes yields a super safe edge. Notice the finger guard to protect the user.

No shop time today (Friday), gonna run a tractor and move dirt and spread gravel on our shared driveway with my neighbor. Its technically his property, but I use it 99% on the time. He's like a brother to me.
That all folks, I hope someone can use some of the information on tools featured.

Thanks for looking and as always, Turn and burn.

Paco

 

[Firestopper]

Got off shift today and tried my hand at turning a 1.250" dimple/die tool. It took me way too long and again with no drawings. It started out as a 3" solid shaft I scored with a big gear a couple if years ago. I had used this material before and really liked the way it machined and polish out.
I used an old stash of crocus cloth I've had for many moons.
My initial intention was to use this tool to dimple the 5C collet rack for the tool cart, unfortunately I abandoned the idea as the hole spacing would be way to great eating up most of the drawer space. I went back to 1.750" hole spacing for the rack with no dimpling. It worked very well on the .100" 5053 aluminum. Not sure how well the die will hold up, but it will go in the tool box and used for 1/8 minus mild steel.
A lite coat of oil and the male/female wring together like gauge blocks.


Now the disappointing part. The test piece of .100" dimpled great but again the spacing was greater than I could live with.
2.5" OC would require a biga$$ rack, I probably could squeeze it by another 1/8" but still not enough.
The scribe marks are from laying out not from the dimpling process. I plan on making an adaptor for the dies to fit on the iron worker for quick and easy dimpling. The limit switches will come in handy for this.

The fit.

Now to the 5C collet rack. The custom rack will have 80 holes on a sheet (1.75" O.C.) 20.5" x 15.750" after it bent on two sides. It will have eight 3"stand offs supporting the floating section and once installed the two broken sides will finish the left and rear of the rack to the bottom of the drawer. The open sides (front and right) will butt up to the front and right side of the drawer for a clean functional look (I hope).
I calculated all the DRO inputs and have come up with a method to secure the sheet on the mill. Jim Dawson has been inspirational to me with his clever securing methods using MDF while milling. I will use 3/4" plywood since I have some leftover from the shop build. I will be using a 1.250" Annular cutter with a 3/4" R-8 collet. The plywood will be secured to a large aluminum bolster plate that fits on the Kurt allowing large flat material to be set up.
Here are the calculations. The first operation is for the smaller .191" holes that will secure the standoffs. Once they are drilled the clamps securing the sheet to the plywood will be removed after running screws through the smaller screw holes. The go back to "home" zero X/Y and begin the second operation of drilling the larger collet holes. I only have a 65 piece collet set but with eighty holes it leave room for adding specialty collets such as square and octagon shapes.

The small sketch at the top of the sheet shows the shape of the sheet, The DRO will be zeroed out at the bottom left hand corner of the sheet. All calculations are referenced from said corner for both operations. The dotted lines represent the bend lines on the sketch. Eight lines with 10 1.250" holes at 1.750" O.C.

Heres the actual piece of aluminum that will be swiss cheesed.

Thats all for now but I will get a photo of the mill setup once I have more shop time.
Thanks for looking.
Turn and Burn!
Paco

 

[Ulma Doctor]

beautiful work Paco!!!

 

[Firestopper]

Thanks Doc. It’s been a challenge but fun.

 

[Bob Korves]

I only have a 65 piece collet set

Easy for you to say, Paco!

 

[Firestopper]

Easy for you to say, Paco!

Awe come on now bob, they where only $200 from CDCO and very accurate. A great buy for anyone with a 5C scroll chuck.
http://www.cdcotools.com

 

[Firestopper]

Waiting on bushings for the box&pan brake so back on the Lathe/Mill cart build. Cut .100" aluminum sheet for the collet rack using a jig saw and double checked the DRO calculations prior to drilling. Went ahead and set up the bolster on the mill and trammed in. The bolster is handy for set up of large bulky items that won't fit in the vise. It also come in handy for cutting profiles on flat sheets using CNC. When the surface gets chingerd a clean up pass with a face mill brings it back to standard. Drilling and tapping is also common for set ups. If your vice is trammed, and you mill the perimeter, you'll always be square every time you mount the bolster.

X axis was .0005" off in 28". A slight adjustment and she was dialed in. Verified the Y axis.

Clamped the sheet registering the two sheared edges to the bolster edges. Set up a 3/8" end mill to clean up the jigsaw cuts x2. The cuts where close but still free hand and I want the rack to sit flat on both broken sides so a clean up pass was in order. I also wanted to see how the sheet was going to fit on the setup.

Straight and square.


I realized the sheet would need to be bent prior to first drilling operation as I was out of table travel and the sheet was too large on Y axis.

I must be living right, check out how close the rear of the sheet is to the mill after zeroing the DRO X/Y to the lower left corner of the sheet.
Even a blind squirrel finds an a-corn once in a while .

Once the DRO was zeroed, the first drill operation was ready. The first eight holes are #11 (.191") and will be used for the standoffs to support the rack to the drawer. The two bent sides will do the same and block smaller items from getting under the rack.

I had about .250" of clearance between the mill column and sheet for the first line of holes.

The layout was for reference only. I used pre-calulated DRO numbers to accurately drill all holes.
The larger (1.250") collet holes where drilled starting from the lower left hand side of sheet.
I decided not to use wood between the sheet and bolster. Te annular cutter leaves a small slug that will rotate on breakthrough (when baked up) and I was concerned it would bite into the wood resulting binding or worse breaking the cutter. Row # 7 was 1/2 on bolster and that was also a concern, but in the end went without drama. Listening and feeling while cutting one knows when breakthrough is imminent.

The arrow in the corner is where zero was set on both axis. The operation was left to right, mover Y up, the second row was right to left, mover up and left to right, rinse and repeat until all eight rows where drilled. No wasted movement, worked pretty well. 1.250" ø 1.750" O.C for a total of 80 holes.

This de-burring tool worked really nice making short work of it. I quickly learned not to apply too much pressure as it will dig in.

A test fit into the drawer. I'm happy with it. You see the smaller #11ø for the stand off's along the left side of the drawer and middle. The bent sides are top and right side.

Right side view.

Close up of the collet fit. Some where tight, but a second pass with the de-burring tool did the trick.

I see some .100" aluminum spacers/shims in my future.

That all for todays progress.
Thanks for looking and please any feedback is always welcomed. If theres a better use/setup for a bolster, shed some light.

Turn and Burn!
Paco

 

[zmotorsports]

Absolutely TOP shelf work all the way Paco. That is really impressive.

One question though, do you think it's heavy duty enough???? Those corner posts seem a bit questionable to me....

Mike

 

[Firestopper]

Thanks Mike,

I hope those legs will hold up haha. Originally was going to use 1/4"x 3"x3" structural steel I had in the rack but decided the 1/8"x 2.5 would suffice. Thats the reason for the roller hubs. 1/8" wall just won't thread too good. I like the look and feel of beefy rolling carts/tables. I bet this thing will have over 800# of tooling. Adds up quick when you start loading chucks etc.

The iron worker support cart rolls extremely well with over 1200# of goodies onboard. This thing has saved my tired back and a pleasure to use during tooling changeover.

The break press that shares the punch station weighs a sh%t ton whith no place to grab. Now it slides in/out without busting a nut.

These sexy legs are 3"square and look more like MY chicken legs next to the Iron worker.
Note: if you look closely down between the castors you can see the indexing feature that locks the table to the Iron worker preventing the table from moving side to side. The swivel/lock castors on the other end lock the cart front to back. This was another project built without drawings other than doodling with a sharpie.