Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[DocsMachine]

Got word back from the owner that he was in fact going to reanodize, and wanted the plugs as smooth as possible.

So, into the stripper she went...



And after cleanup, here's a close-up showing how close they were.



The rest just took a little patient care with a couple fine needle files, taking care not to scratch or gouge anything, and working both down to the matching slight curves.



Finally, a couple light passes with some 800-grit, blends them together nicely.



And that's pretty much as 'invisible' as an eye repair gets.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Couple random pics as I empty off my camera cards:

The setup in my Nichols horizontal mill (that I rebuilt from a rusty junker) used to cut the slots in my Flashpoint tips:



I have a digital indexer, which makes this kind of thing a touch quicker, but that was set up on another machine at the time.

And here's an interesting shot from the beginning of an MCB'ers project:



Hope to have that one finished and out the door this week!

Doc.

[Frmrspec]

What digital indexer? I found a couple models I really liked on eBay, then hit refresh and never found them again..

[DocsMachine]

It's an early Haas indexer, built off a Hardinge manual indexer. Haas' first product, as I understand it. Mine's old enough it still has a big stepper motor rather than the later servo motors, but it works perfectly, and is as tight and accurate as I can hope. My CNC mill can't operate a true 4th axis, but it's plug-and-play with an indexer like this.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Doc's Christmas Vacation, Day 2:

One minor project I've been meaning to do for way too long now, is set up my Haas digital indexer on the Arboga drill press. I have a number of parts runs, both already on the floor and in the works, that need radial drilling- air vents, "muzzle brake" type holes, etc. One of these days I'll get this thing set up in the CNC mill proper and do this kind of thing automatically, but for the time being, I still have product I need to get out the door.

I usually set this indexer up on one of the manual mills, but it's really just drill press work- and I have this really nice gear-head drill press with an X/Y positioning table that doesn't get anywhere near enough use.

So I've wanted to set it up on there, where I can leave it set up for a while. The problem with this is the table has no center T-slot:



Because of the channel where the leadscrew goes, what would usually be a center T-slot on a milling machine, is just a groove. In this case I could mount the indexer and it's tailstock to either the fore or aft slot, but that uses up quite a bit of the table's limited travel- and besides, my OCD says they need to be centered.



The fix, however, is pretty easy, just a chunk of aluminum plate as an adapter. I've had a chunk laying around for this exact use, for... longer then I care to think. So I got that slab out, and bandsawed it in half. That got set up in the mill and both long edges milled straight.



I started drilling some holes- this was all designed on the fly, by the way - and realized I was going to need a bunch of threaded holes, to be able to adjust the spacing between the indexer and the tailstock, to accommodate different length parts. That led to the realization- hey, I'm slow -that the two parts didn't necessarily need to be bolted to the same adapter plate.

And, I remembered one of the other adapters I wanted to make- one to mount a 4" Kurt-style vise to the table.

So, I shifted my plans a bit, drilled a few holes in other locations...



And bandsawed that in half.



That meant I only needed to drill and tap two pairs of holes in the indexer's baseplate- one more or less centered, the other shifted to an extreme side to allow maximum length.



Et voila!



I need more bolts the right length, and some washers, but just for a mock-up, we're doin' good so far.

I then cut a fresh piece from the other half of that plate, milled it square, and drilled six holes and tapped two.



That will set the tailstock up like this:



I'll have to pick up the rest of the bolts and washers I need when I make my next town run, but this should work just fine. I'll need to set up a small shelf or table for the indexer controller, but I can use a stool just to get through the current projects.

Oh, and the other sawed-off bit?



Mounts a little 4" Kurt-style vise in the same way, which will make the drill a little more convenient to use on a typical day-to-day basis. I'll have to take that spider handle off, though, as it interferes with the table's crank, but that's no big.

Not a bad way to spend the evening. [checks one item off of 387-entry list]

Doc.