I’ve been very busy lately outside of the shop on coursework so I haven’t had a lot of time in the shop this week. I’ve managed to get some time in the shop making 4 more brackets for my friend’s Audi S4 antics:
The brackets are made out of 1018 cold rolled steel. What I really liked about this project is everyone of my powered machine tools (bandsaw, shaper, lathe, mill, belt sander, bench grinder!) was used. The method went something like this:
- Cut to size on the bandsaw
- Face and machine to thickness on the shaper
- Square up on the mill
- Drill the holes and start tapping on the mill (finish up by hand)
- Cut the large radius in the lathe using a face plate setup (I used a hacksaw first to remove most of the material!)
- Cut the outside profile on the bandsaw
- Add the profile radii on the belt sander
- And of course, sharpening all the tools on the bench grinder and / or belt sander
It was the first job I really put my newly acquired 7″ Ammco Shaper to work.
The shaper worked great, and it was really nice to just let the little machine work away while I was drilling on the mill. Would I trade my mill for a shaper? No, probably not, but the little shaper is a pretty useful tool. It did a very good job on finishing the 1018, which can be really gummy at times with poor chip control. I used a 1/4 HSS turning tool with a small stepper over for roughing and finishing. Roughing used a depth of cut of about .020″, which I though was fairly respectable given the 1/3 hp motor powering the little shaper. I’ll be posting some more details on the HSS tool geometry I used soon.
thecogwheel 