An interesting trick with balls.

I thought this thread on HSM was worth bringing to your attention owing to the interesting use of large ball bearings and a socket head screw to locate an awkward shaped part on the milling machine table.

Nice one SId.

Sometimes you just have to think outside the square, must keep this idea in my head ,you never know.

Excellent stuff …

MichaelG.

That's a neat idea!

Browsing though a very old (1940s/50s I think) copy of ME I came across a slightly similar idea for packing items on a faceplate to allow tool-pass clearance.

The contributor there, simply put several nuts and bolts through "spare" holes in the faceplate, tightened them and skimmed the bolt heads so they became fixed spacers. Re-useable too, in future, of course.

Agree thats a very neat idea, as well as trying to indicate a piece on the mill by putting more pressure on one corner so the whole thing does not move if you tap it making you go in circles.

Interesting but could the same have been done with two nuts (one above, one below) on a vertical stud locked into that ali extrusion?

They say later they need to put the part on an angle, studding and nuts wouldn't allow for that but the balls wouls, until I read that part I was thinking along the same lines though.

Baldric.

I am not sure Jason. I agree with Baldric, I think he needed to be able to vary the angle relative to the top of the mill bed (hence the mentioned need, possibly tongue in cheek, for a large double sine table) and this method allows that without ending up with unwanted sideways forces from the clamping. You would still have some sideways forces but they will be considerably smaller than those from an extended stud at an angle. I would think a couple of acorn nuts on a short piece of stud would also work and be easier to set up than two loose ball bearings used at a number of locations.

Martin C

Very innovative. Works well for a light job on aluminium like that. The small drilled divot in the clamps to hold them in position on the top ball would save a lot of heartache during set up I should imagine.

Martin, what you call acorn nut I know as dome head nuts ? If so then the dome is pressed on, Not solid and I have known them to be knocked off, or forced off if the bolt is to long. Noel.

I did not read down to the need for mounting the job at an angle t

Edited By JasonB on 28/10/2022 10:59:19

Acorn nuts are slightly pointy on the end, dome nuts are rounded. (Custom Harley builders know these things.) I have seen some acorn nuts where the acorn is a pressed on piece of chromed thin sheet metal over a hex nut, but have seen others that are machined from the solid. It would definitely pay to check which you have before clamping down on them!

Hopper, things may have changed, but in my experience long ago, acorn nuts were definitely machined from the solid. These were used on machine tools, so solid parts were a requirement.

Bill

Yes the good ones are still machined from solid. But I was rather surprised one time when pulling the windshield off a Harley to have the decorative chromed acorn outer covering come off the hex nut concealed within. I think it may have even been a chromed plastic moulding but have long since thrown it away so not sure.

.

As René Magritte might have put it …

Ceci n'est pas un écrou de gland

MichaelG.

Hi, just about all the dome nuts that I've seen and used have been sold and quite often have a small flat on the very top of the dome, I think I only ever saw some nuts with the dome pressed on, once. But I did rescue eight of these austenitic stainless steel M14 pointy type nuts from ending up in the scrap bin in my old day job, the slightly domed part at the top is about 9mm diameter, so could be used on small holes providing the rest of the nut didn't clash with anything.

No idea what they were meant for and never saw a machine which used them, but the company did purchase a transport firm that had quite a few lorries and associated gear and a shed full of spare parts, so they could have come with them.

Regards Nick.

They are the sort of thing that's used in the nuclear industry because they are easy to decontaminate compared with an ordinary nut with the thread sticking out.

Peter

Hi Oven Man, thanks for your thoughts on that, as far as I'm aware, the old company that I worked for didn't have any connection with the nuclear industry, but maybe that transport firm they purchased made deliveries to the nuclear industry or others associated with them and they just happened to have been left on their lorry by mistake.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 29/10/2022 09:57:20