Small Scale CNC work required, any takers?

Yes Martin I meant if you don't have a horizontal mill.

I am not sure why the setup should sing unless the clamp was too far away from the cut allowing the thin plate to vibrate.

It is hard to clamp thin plate down unless the clamp face is ground perfectly flat. I sometimes place a piece of suspension file cardboard under the clamp to keep the work pressed against the table (the older ones are harder and better for this job).

Cheers
John

Hi All,.

Finally got around to having another go at these plough plane cutters.

I have several RECORD & RAPIER 043 type small planes all with no cutters. These are quite wanted so had to sort it out!

I finally came up with this fixture made to hold the gauge plate exactly square, clamped by the top plate:

Using a 1/16" HSS slitting saw at low speed in back gear I was surprised how easily the cut went, no chatter, or nasty ringing sounds this time. I used lots of oil on the blade and a slow but constant feed. I fed the stock after each cut allowing for the blade thickness on the DRO.

3 cuts giving a 1/8", 3/16" & 1/4" blade set took exactly 8 minutes and the finish was way better than the chop saw method from before with the parts only needing a quick deburring. No bending or jagged ends like before.

I ground the bevels on each one then oil hardened and tempered to straw colour.

Fortunately the 043 irons do not have the grooves so they are very easy.

Now wondering whether the MYFORD would be man enough to gang up 2 or more saws and try the grooves?

Any thoughts on that please?

Cheers, Martin

The Myford drive train should be powerful enough for multiple cutters but i would imagine you would need a proper arbor and tailstock support, might also be an idea to cut your material in half lengthwise and put one piece on top of the other, that way you would double the amount you are cutting.

Hi All,

It has been a long hard road to finally complete these sets of cutters

Many thanks to Andrew Johnston for doing a sterling horizontal milling job on the grooves and bevel.

The real problem was in finding a water jet cutter to take on the job; tried several companies and they all either did not want the job or said it could not be done as the small parts would get lost in the tank.

Other companies wanted to charge between £250 and £1000 plus VAT to do them!

Finally found a guy who said he would fit them in between other work as time was not an issue and he wanted a bit of cash. 5 MONTHS later I called to be told he was going out of business and I was lucky to get my material back!

I was playing on the computer at MIDNIGHT on Friday and came across a company near Portsmouth, used their online enquiry form to outline the project and got a reply 8 minutes later saying "no problem I'll do them while you wait"

Went over there on Monday with full Covid observance and the guy did them for me at a VERY reasonable price; the set up took a a bit of messing about to avoid damaging the bevel end but got round that by reversing the work. He did a complete cut whereas all the other outfits said it had to be done with tabs, meaning more work for me.

Turned out like this after hardening:

I will post a video of then being cut later.

The guy is happy to do more and will charge a bit less for next batch as he now has the file on his system; also happy to help with some other projects that I have in mind.

Cheers, Martin

That’s impressive, Martin

... I look forward to seeing the video [and your man’s contact details]

MichaelG.

Hi all,

Here is link of the waterjet cutter doing the blades:

Edited By JasonB on 14/01/2021 10:18:58

Hi all,

Here is the start of the next plane part project, the small clamping part for the early RECORD plough plane models 043. 044 and MARPLES variant M4. Also the RAPIER models although these are slightly different.

Originals are in cast iron and are about the first part to disappear into the ether when finding the plane second hand.

Have started to mill the profile as shown here but can only accommodate a small length in my vice, work holding is pretty tricky also allowing only very small cuts. Material is some steel from the scrap bin, cuts OK.

The idea is to get this profile done as in the original as far as I can, then get the top profile water jetted from above. The small scallops and final finishing to be done by hand.

Again I think I will need some horizontal milling done to machine economical viable lengths.

Should keep me out of trouble for a while !

Cheers, Martin