The Die Filer Build

[Netpackrat]

Thanks. I haven't gotten a whole lot done on it over the last week or so. Waiting on tooling and stuff to arrive; I ordered a piece of 4140 to make a slitting saw arbor from, and a milling setup consisting of an angle plate, a vertical slide, and a small vise which hopefully won't suck too much. Also re-ordered my collet chuck from a different supplier.

The piece of 1.25" bronze that I had ordered finally arrived today, so I made the bearing for the crankshaft this evening:

[Netpackrat]

So as I mentioned in Does Not Follow, the stuff I had ordered arrived and I made a slitting saw arbor out of 4140. Then I found that the 1" shank of the arbor would not fit all the way through the cheap Chinese collet because it wasn't fully machined. I have a better collet ordered for future use, but some time spent with a brake cylinder hone relieved the current one sufficiently for the arbor shank to pass all the way through.

Then I installed the milling setup as best I could manage. This ended up being a really craptastic setup but eventually it got the job done once I figured out how the work wanted to be fed into the saw. The milling attachment would probably be better suited to light cuts in aluminum on maybe a slightly smaller lathe, but the cut still managed to turn out decent and I probably learned more than I would have by using a real milling machine. Didn't damage anything important although the arbor is going to need some re-work before I try to use it for anything else again. The 4" HSS saw was probably not the best possible choice for this application, but when I was looking at slitting saws on Ebay, it was the right thickness, big enough, and less expensive than anything else that was close.



I still need to mill the groove in the scotch yoke for the bronze crank follower, but my milling attachment is going to need some work before I tackle that. The tiny vise is too small to get a good grip on it from the small end, so I will probably have to bolt a piece of heavy angle iron directly to the vertical slide, and then clamp and/or through bolt the yoke directly to that.



After that I will have to somehow tackle the milling on the base and table castings. Will probably need to make adapter plates to bolt them to the vertical slide, and maybe place some sort of machinist jack or blocking between the other end of the casting and the cross slide for support.

[Netpackrat]

This turned out reasonably well:



Nothing like spending 2+ hours fixturing and taking light cuts, to do what would probably be a 10 minute job for a mill.

[Precision]

I am impressed with your ability to adapt and overcome. Good for you.

[Netpackrat]

Thanks. I am pretty much down to the milling on the base and table castings now.

[Netpackrat]

Haven't done anything new on this project since my last post, but I did come across the following VFD that could be a variable speed solution for this:

https://www.kb-controls.com/product.sc? ... egoryId=29

Unlike most of the other 120v VFDs on the market, it is designed to run off an outlet with a GFCI without tripping it. So I would just have to find a compatible 3 phase motor like I was looking at before.

[HTRN]

Other 110v input 3 phase vfds:

https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/sh ... /gs21-11p0

Surplus center has a 3/4 hp, 3 phase motor that will work nicely for your application:
https://www.surpluscenter.com/Electric- ... 0-2710.axd

[Netpackrat]

I was looking at a 1/3hp Dayton for a bit less than that. Seems like anything bigger would be overkill for what this tool is.

[Netpackrat]

Speaking of overkill, the 1/3hp motor showed up yesterday... it turned out to be a bit larger than I was expecting.



My current plan is to build a metal enclosure for the motor and possibly the VFD, that the die filer will bolt on top of.

[Netpackrat]

No progress on the die filer lately, but I have a question primarily for HTRN. I bought a used boring head on Ebay recently, which came with a 1" plain shank and some thing with a micrometer scale on it:



What is the purpose of this device? I haven't seen them on other boring heads for sale. I originally thought that it was part of the 1" shank but I guess it was just installed between the shank and the boring head. I bought an R8 shank for the head, need to know what purpose it serves. If it will be useful to me I will keep it installed, otherwise I will probably keep trying to remove it. It's threaded on there pretty firmly.

Edit to add; no sooner did I post this, than my gunsmith friend got back to me with more info on it (I was getting impatient and figured HTRN might have a better idea anyway). Apparently it is an eccentric device for taking tenths (On a Bridgeport... On MY Bridgeport... Ha!). So no, not terribly useful to me, but probably no real reason to remove it, either.

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/g ... ad-144252/