Tool holders

[digr]

That has to save a lot of time!

[LKeithR]

Originally Posted by toprecycler

...I think I remember Keith calling them Prentiss ? Drills. Different parts of the country have different names...

From what I have been able to figure out Silver & Deming was the first American manufacturer to produce the reduced shank drills. Prentiss was the name of a company in Britain that made the same drills.

Because of our British heritage here in Canada the name Prentiss pops up far more commonly than S&D but I've certainly seen both terms used depending on who the supplier is. Classic case of a brand (or manufacturer) name being used to identify a product.

Personally I don't like the drills with the three flats--they never seem to run as true as the round shank drills. I rarely use my Prentiss drills in a chuck anyway--most of the time I'll run them in a collet or a 1/2" endmill holder. They hold really well and always run really true.

I do keep a few 3-flat drills around for use in electric drills when I'm hand drilling a hole. In that application the 3-flats hold better but eventually they will get chewed up. I just don't care as much...

[LKeithR]

Originally Posted by greywynd

...Along with the size, I always try to write the alloy/material as well...

I never worry about marking the size--15 seconds with a pair of calipers and you know what you've got. But if you don't mark the alloy you're potentially wasting material. If you have a piece of unmarked material you pretty much have to treat it as mild steel even if you know it's something better. In certain cases you can get away with guessing but for a lot of jobs the material has to be right--can't take a chance on something that wasn't marked...

[toprecycler]

Maybe a bit off topic, but Tuesday night I decided to start mounting the DRO on my little Burke mill that I bought about a year ago.

Figured first thing I better mount the display unit. I made a 3-d printed curved spacer to mount the flat plate to the round part of the column. And did some other planning on mounting the table Y axis scale.

I managed to finish mounting the Y axis scale tonight, and then looked at the X axis. That one was easier. Did that one in just over an hour. I have probably 4-5 hours in the Y axis.

So now I have the X and Y axis working. Still have to secure the cables. Next will be the knee Z. Then the Quill scale.

I will say I have been impressed with the metric tap and drill set I picked up at Lowes a couple years ago. Really came in handy drilling the 3, 4, and 5 mm screws to mount the scales. So far the drills are working great on the machine cast and aluminum. Luckily I had also ordered an assortment of small metric bolts and nuts, I had to use a few of those too.









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