Anyone here ever used a magnetic chuck?

Edited By ady on 08/06/2011 09:55:19

Hi Ady

I'm not sure that using a magnetic chuck for holding your vice on a flat magnetic plate would give you any advantage over having the same vice mounted on a flat plate with numerous slots/holes to facilitate easy bolting to the bed of your machine. You'd still have much the same easy set up and a better/ firmer hold for machining. As I understand it magnetic chuck really come into their own with such jobs as surface grinding, where the cutting forces are low, you want to be able to take the tooling right off the end of the workpiece without hitting clamps and you want a clamping system that doesn't induce distortion. Also I'm not sure I'd like to take a roughing milling cut with the work just held magnetically and definitely not in a shaper!

I've thought for sometime however that there is a distinct lack of information and "how to build one" instructions around I don't mean the simple 3 or 4 magnets mounted on a base type thing, but the fully switchable designs such as are used at the small end in clock gauge mounting bases for example. With the ready availability these days of cheap NdFeB magnets with their high holding powers, in many ways the difficult bit has been done. The switching should be just a matter of making a system of moving pole pieces to either put the magnetic flux through the workpiece for holding or shorting out for release. Anywhere that you want to machine thin ferrous workpieces should have an application, making spacer /shim washers for example, as an alternative to a glue chuck or double sided tape on a faceplate. Probably the answer there is a magnetic chuck won't work on brass or ali, glue and tape is simple cheap and will!

Any thoughts anyone - or possibly design?

Keith

Edited By Bogstandard on 10/06/2011 20:11:28

Edited By ady on 12/06/2011 01:29:12

Edited By ady on 12/06/2011 01:48:06