Getting Dirty with Mildred

[cutter]

I've been meaning to build a carriage stop for little Charlie ever since ... well, Charlie.
1. This is what I've been using.

We now interrupt this program for a word about cdco tooling.

I ordered a few things from Frank, the Chicago Chinese tool merchant, among them a set of Little Hoggers. Jack had posted something of a favorable review of them, as you may recall. The set is $29.

2. They came in this little wooden box.

3. I was not surprised to find that the box sorta fell apart in shipping.

4. But, no harm. They were sufficiently padded to survive.

5. Since I still don't have any facing tools, the 1 inch-er is my best shot for "hogging" off flat bars like this and this project involved a considerable amount of surfacing.
For what they are & what they cost and in view of the fact I don't know any better anyway, I've been very pleased with them.

[cutter]

I've used the largest of the hoggers a lot more than the other two; it gives me a cut just under 1 inch wide.

1, 2 & 3. Here's pictures of it running about 840rpm & smoking the cutting oil. The finish certainly isn't polished and you notice I'm not yet blowing the chips out of the way.
More about that shortly.

[OLD MAN]

Another nice start on a new project. Great.

[cutter]

Now, on with the show.

My idea was to build a simple sled or saddle arrangement with a lock screw, then worry about a possible fine adjustment later.
I figured that would surely beat the little c-clamp & scrap metal.

So I set out to do that. I also wanted to relieve the back side runner to fit underneath the headstock so the stop could slide as far back as possible.

So, here's some pictures of the first iteration of the sled/saddle/stop.
1. the basic stop.

2. back side runner relieved.

3, 4 & 5 shows some steps along the way. I did eventually trim that set screw down.

[Dave Lee]

Cutter, you certainly enjoy thinking up these post titles. Of course, I do too.

It's been my experience that, that's about the kind of finish you can expect on that kind of steel.

Are those cutters carbide? I'm no genius with carbide but, I don't think you need cutting oil with it. I've always seen carbide used dry unless, it's a production setting with flood coolant.


Dave

[cutter]

Yep, they are carbide Dave and I would be happy to run them dry for obvious reasons but I don't know what grade or designation they are since the cdco ad doesn't attempt to spec anything. I ran them with oil anyway so as to maybe avoid having GWIZ chew me out. And I really don't have enough experience to know the difference.

1. Now, about that set screw. I milled a little pocket on the inside of the front runner to accommodate this little pill I made to prevent the screw from gouging Charlie's ways.

2. And I fooled right around & milled the socket right into the threads that hold the whole thing together.
That really didn't affect it very much since the screws still catch plenty of threads - and down the line you'll see that I wound up overcoming this with another modification.

3 & 4. More shots of the insert.

Welp, all that worked somewhat successfully but I found that when I really cranked down on the screw the whole thing racked too much to suit me.
I decided that I needed more bridge & more threads to the saddle.

5. So I sorta started over with a bigger piece for the top.

[cutter]

Originally Posted by OLD MAN

Another nice start on a new project. Great.

I got a little surprise coming up for you in a bit.
Something you might remember.

[cutter]

So, back to the hogger, drilled some oddly space holes because of working around the 4 that were already there, had to hand tap 6 new ones and I decided to change to longer screws to get more threads involved.

By the way, the new iGaging DRO's were certainly a big help in all this screwing around & doing over, especially in locating the new screwholes in relation to the old ones. It's quite an improvement just to have the ability to "get back to zero".

Now, for another side trip.
I had been watching the chips go round & round long enough; I could also hear them from time to time so I decided to try a little experiment that would negate the need to run my big compressor at all.

1. here is a rigged up arrangement to aim a soft air hose at the endmill. The hose is an old cannula - from my medical oxygen. You have to replace those things pretty often so they've been piling up for the last few months; I thought it was time to make use of one.

2. the nozzle came out of a blister pack of Harbor Freight air tools, if I remember correctly. I have no idea what it was intended to do, but whatever - it works without whistling.

3. and the air source is an old nebulizer that I found in a rent house a few years ago. The little piston pumps are not silent but they make very little noise compared to a normal oil-less compressor. I had taken this little guy apart & oiled the motor a few months ago; it puts out a fair airstream.
Derned it if don't seem to work pretty well. More air might do better but this sure is convenient so I'm going to try it for a while.

I used it while I made this new top.

4. New top screwed on. The socket screws have allen heads & it's easier to crank them down pretty snuggish.

5. Needs relieving over the radius cut in the backside runner.

[cutter]

1. Roughed the new saddle on the Sadsaw.

2. From that point I had to hunt up a couple of old sanding drums to try to smooth up the arc a little bit and then let Mildred finish the straight lines on each end. There's still a good bit of smoothing up I want to do - rounding off the sharp corners & trimming some over hangs. I couldn't find any more sanding sleeves last night.

3. It does mate up with the headstock well enough for me & the girls who hang it in my little shop.
By the way, the stop really doesn't need to sit back this far for use with Charlie's chucks but I was trying to allow for the possible future use with a face plate - not that I even own one right now.
But you never know.

4. At this point I decided it might be a keeper so I drilled and tapped a hole in the end that butts the carriage for a fine adjustment. This time I remembered to avoid the other screwholes.

5. I'd probably want to change the screw to a hex head with a lock nut but it could be used like this.

[cutter]

1 & 2. Or it could be used like this.

Jerry, this is the part I thought you might remember.

3 & 4. The little mic came from the Jones & Lamson "0-set Test Chaser" that neither one of us knew what to do with.