Well, it seems everyone here posts pics of nicely finished projects and rarely do you see failed attempts. So I thought I would break that to encourage people to post their failed attempts to help others learn. Well this project failed from the get go, for those who don't know or recognize this, its a tool holder its for a shaper. I bought my shaper without the tool holder, and after some searching to buy one it lead me to make one instead, as there hard to come by and pricey. In all honesty this is my second attempt at making it. My first one failed miserably, most people weld 1" round stock to a piece of 3/8X7/8 flat, then drill and mill the round out. Sounds easy right? Well attempt number 1 failed when I went to go weld mine together. I hadn't used my welder in 7 months, so naturally the battery for my auto dim helmet was dead. Great, got to love living in a remote location as no one was open near me to buy the special battery. So no welding. So I went inside defeated, or so I thought till I got thinking I had a nice chunk of 1"X2" hot rolled bar sitting in the garage. So back to the shop to try attempt #2. I machined this one out of a solid bar stock, cut the radius on the bottom with my mill (first time cutting outside radius on mill) Looked good to me. Next part was to cut the slots in the head to accept the 1/4" tool bit. No problem, took out my rotary table a cheap 4" china made thing. Put the round into the 3 jaw chuck on it, centered the hole in it. Cut my first slot straight down the shank. Turned out good, then went to go cut the two 45 in it. Now this is were it went sideways on me. As you can see in the last pic my set up was off and the two 45 weren't lined up perfectly (look at the little "triangles" on the top aren't equal). Now at this point there is usually slots cut at 90, two at 45 and one at 180. Well seeing as my setup somehow got messed up I wasn't able to cut the last 180 slot.
Where did it go wrong you ask? Well I think theres two things I messed up on. First of all when I cut the outside radius I never cut it to a full circle. If you look at the pics you can see it looks flat on the side and bottom of the round. I didn't want to make it perfectly round as I didn't want to remove too much material from the outer diameter. The second thing that went wrong was as soon as I put my rotary table on my mill, I never centred the chuck on the rotary table. I completely forgot to as I thought it was already done. I am positive I did it last time I used it but guess not! Well I learned a few things, so the next one will be perfect when I do one. This one will work fine for the time being. Next one will be much better! So go ahead and add to this post your failed attempts! We all do it, as much as I hate to say it....
Where did it go wrong you ask? Well I think theres two things I messed up on. First of all when I cut the outside radius I never cut it to a full circle. If you look at the pics you can see it looks flat on the side and bottom of the round. I didn't want to make it perfectly round as I didn't want to remove too much material from the outer diameter. The second thing that went wrong was as soon as I put my rotary table on my mill, I never centred the chuck on the rotary table. I completely forgot to as I thought it was already done. I am positive I did it last time I used it but guess not! Well I learned a few things, so the next one will be perfect when I do one. This one will work fine for the time being. Next one will be much better! So go ahead and add to this post your failed attempts! We all do it, as much as I hate to say it....
