Making a wrench-like tool

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spike7638

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I want to make something like a crow's-foot wrench for a 2" nut. It'll be about 5" overall length, made of 3/16 mild steel, and have a hole that I can put a 3/8 ratchet drive into. It doesn't have to apply a ton of force -- it's basically used to back off a locknut that's snugged up against another nut that keeps a shaft-packing snug. (The thing I'm working on looks something like this.

I can make a 2"-wide slot in my plate just fine, but at the top of the slot, I need to make two more sides, so that I get four out of six sides of a hexagon. I'm not at all sure how to do this on a milling machine that's manual. If it were 90 degree angles I needed to make, that'd be easy, but 120=degrees...I just don't know how to do that with the mill vise. (I can use the DRO to tell me when I've gotten to the correct location, and I can use a file to clean up the last bit of the corners....but moving the piece at an angle that's 60 degrees away from the prior direction of motion eludes me.)

Any help you can offer will be most welcome.
 
I guess your mill doesn't have a rotating bed? Some do...

Quickest would be to pull out a draftsman's 30-60-90 degree triangle, as a gage
against the slots in a mill table. When one edge of the triangle is placed against the first cut,
and another edge indicates as parallel to bed travel (the slots), clamp the workpiece and start cutting.
 
whitmore said:
I guess your mill doesn't have a rotating bed? Some do...

Quickest would be to pull out a draftsman's 30-60-90 degree triangle, as a gage
against the slots in a mill table. When one edge of the triangle is placed against the first cut,
and another edge indicates as parallel to bed travel (the slots), clamp the workpiece and start cutting.
Click to expand...
Thank you.

I'm a real newbie, so forgive my possible misuse/misunderstanding of terminology. By "bed", you mean the 5-foot long thing with a handle for "X" travel at its right-hand end, and with slots into which the fixing bolts for the vise go, right? I had no idea it was possible that the machine bed could rotate...but I can look the next time I'm at the shop. Clearly, if that's possible, then things are easy.

I was thinking that maybe the vise itself could rotate, but I've cleaned it enough times that I can see it in my mind's eye, and I'm pretty sure it can't.

I think I understand about the 30-60-90 triangle thing ... but it sounds as if you're recommending rotating something --- the work piece, maybe? --- until I've got a 30-degree angle (so that 90 degrees away from that is 120 degrees) and then clamping the piece. But if I do that, my 5" x 3" piece ends up clamped on two corners, which obviously won't work.

Do you perhaps mean taking the vise and loosening the bolts to the bed and rotating the vise, with the piece in it, until it's 30-degrees from where it used to be, and then somehow clamping it to the bed? Is there enough play in securing a vise to even make that possible?
 
If you have the swivel base for your vise, I would just start holding it at the proper angle. I did a full hex like that once, basically you drill a small hole in each 'corner' of the hex, then use a milling cutter to 'connect the dots'. You eventually have to go to a small endmill to get all the way into the corners (or a file!).
 
spike7638 said:
Thank you.

I'm a real newbie, so forgive my possible misuse/misunderstanding of terminology. By "bed", you mean the 5-foot long thing with a handle for "X" travel at its right-hand end, and with slots into which the fixing bolts for the vise go, right? I had no idea it was possible that the machine bed could rotate...but I can look the next time I'm at the shop. Clearly, if that's possible, then things are easy.

I was thinking that maybe the vise itself could rotate, but I've cleaned it enough times that I can see it in my mind's eye, and I'm pretty sure it can't.

I think I understand about the 30-60-90 triangle thing ... but it sounds as if you're recommending rotating something --- the work piece, maybe? --- until I've got a 30-degree angle (so that 90 degrees away from that is 120 degrees) and then clamping the piece. But if I do that, my 5" x 3" piece ends up clamped on two corners, which obviously won't work.

Do you perhaps mean taking the vise and loosening the bolts to the bed and rotating the vise, with the piece in it, until it's 30-degrees from where it used to be, and then somehow clamping it to the bed? Is there enough play in securing a vise to even make that possible?
Click to expand...
I believe he means instead of mounting the part in a vice, you use clamps and clamp it to the table at a 30 degree angle.

You can get a swivel base for most vises that will let you do this as well, which is really helpful. See the vise here: https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=1755 with the base.
 
I believe he means instead of mounting the part in a vice, you use clamps and clamp it to the table at a 30 degree angle.
Click to expand...
D'oh! I never even considered that this was possible --- I've always use a vise whenever I've milled anything. I'd need a piece of scrap aluminum or something under it, of course, but that's easy. And the "connect the dots" approach you were suggesting is exactly what I had in mind.

Thanks very much to both of you!
 
spike7638 said:
D'oh! I never even considered that this was possible --- I've always use a vise whenever I've milled anything. I'd need a piece of scrap aluminum or something under it, of course, but that's easy. And the "connect the dots" approach you were suggesting is exactly what I had in mind.

Thanks very much to both of you!
Click to expand...
You can always put a sufficiently flat piece of dead tree carcass under there as well :) High quality plywood usually does the trick.
 
spike7638 said:
D'oh! I never even considered that this was possible --- I've always use a vise whenever I've milled anything. I'd need a piece of scrap aluminum or something under it, of course, but that's easy. And the "connect the dots" approach you were suggesting is exactly what I had in mind.
Click to expand...

The scrap you put under the part needs to be flat--completely deburred--and did I mention flat.
 
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