Thread: Plate, measure, stop and clean

Just thought I'd show some of the latest things I've been working on.

My rotary doesn't align the T slots with the mill table when it's set to 0 deg.
Also more places to attach clamps and more room for them would be better, so I made a plate for it to fix both of those issues.
Interesting to note. The plate is 20mm thick steel and has 85 holes, drilled on the mill and 81 of them are tapped M10 through by hand. I had sore shoulders the following day.



One of the best ways to set a job directly under the center of the spindle is to use an indicator straight off the spindle.
I needed a way to mount it there. It was a beaut exercise for Autocad and the rotary table.



Parting off or creating a step in your job on the lathe can be accomplished very accurately with a carriage stop.
Here's mine. Just wish I would have cleaned it up a bit before taking the photo.



Speaking of cleaning. Cleaning a mill table's T slots isn't easy ... until now.
Some months ago I purchased a length of bristles to make a vacuum boot for my CNC router.
A little of that came in handy here.

Nice work.
Best way I've found to clean T slots is to just drag something straight through them for a start to remove packed chips, then a cheap 50x10mm bristle type paint brush (not synthetic bristle they are too flexi).
With the brush on an angle it reaches inside the recesses of the slots well.

I admire your tenacity - tapping all those holes by hand!!

Steve

Why not just make a metal Tee Slot cleaner.

Originally Posted by pipeclay

Why not just make a metal Tee Slot cleaner.

I’ve tried that and IMO the brush works better. The metal Tee shaped ones work fine for a few chips, but tend to just pack the chips in front if the slot is full.
So you have to clear in short sections starting from the open end of the slot, and if you bite off too much and the chips pack you have to go again with a smaller bite.
Maybe I was doing it wrong or the tool I made was crap, but I was never impressed with the method.

Also, I’ve always got a brush at hand for giving the vice jaws a quick swarf flick before taking a part out, so I’m not having to look around for a separate tool to clean the slots.

Steve

Hi Guys,

At one of the famous (infamous) £ shops, I bought a pack of four plastic handled wire brushes, two with steel bristles, one with brass ones and one with nylon ones. About the size of a very large toothbrush ! They fit perfectly in the slots on the mill table, the steel ones do a great job of shifting the swarf. Even better if I place a magnet on the brush head it gets the tiny stuff that seems to hide under the top of the "T".

Originally Posted by pipeclay

Why not just make a metal Tee Slot cleaner.

That's on the opposite side to the bristles. See photo.

Originally Posted by BaronJ

Hi Guys,

At one of the famous (infamous) £ shops, I bought a pack of four plastic handled wire brushes, two with steel bristles, one with brass ones and one with nylon ones.

I bought a set of those a few years ago. Haven't use the "brass" one yet so its just been in the extras drawer until a few weeks ago, when I discovered it was going rusty. I know everything rusts that fast here, that you can almost hear it, but really? Turns out the "brass" brush was actually brass plated steel. lol

Originally Posted by OxxAndBert

The metal Tee shaped ones work fine for a few chips, but tend to just pack the chips in front if the slot is full.

I usually just rake out the slot with the "T" at 90 deg to the slot to remove most of the chips and then use the T the correct way to finish off. What doesn't come out then, stays till next time.