Help Me - I want to make a custom boolit

[Boomer Mikey]

More Info:

Buckshot's constant reminders that most of this stuff is old hat is so true... I recently found Google has digitized many Machine Technology books from the 1900's that contain everything one needs to know about how to make these things work. All of the books are free downloads. Many are worth your time and here are a few I found useful:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1d4...eamers#PPR1,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=roh...making+methods

http://books.google.com/books?id=PZR...pCqJY0#PPR1,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=PZR...#PRA11-PA15,M1

After looking at the drawings for BABore's vise I concur with leftiye and I'll add a couple of 1/2" guide rods to the jaws as well.

Boomer

Also a few Thumbnails of some fixtures:

[leftiye]

There's a couple of heavier double acting vises from a guy on ebay. His call sign is jtsmach8xzw. You ought to look at them. Even if I add that on the larger 6"vise the shipping is painful. They're heavy duty CNC vises. See the thread on solid carbide boring bars in Special Projects forum.

[BABore]

Screw tolerance is extremely important on a Cherrying vise. With a lathe bored mold, the vise is always operated in the closed (clamped) condition. A bit of lash usually doesn't effect performance. In a cherry vise it does and will because it causes chatter.

[Boomer Mikey]

I received the double acting vise Friday and it looks like it will work fine, there are dovetails and an adjustable gibb to keep the action tight. So far there is no detectable back lash in jaw movement.

I plan to make a cutter-grinder spindle and use it with a cheap PhaseII X-Y table I've had for years, mounting accessories like the Spin Index fixture with tailstock for flute grinding and small rotary grinding jobs.

Boomer

[Boomer Mikey]

I started work on the Grizzly double acting vise last week.



It's been sitting around doing nothing the same as me... I made the two jaw blocks, drilled and reamed the guide rod holes to 0.499" then polished some drill rod for a snug fit.

I let my mill get totally out of alignment over the last couple of years and this relatively easy job became a Murphy's Law fun-fest until I took the time to get out the DTI to check and align everything. I found one of the Kurt vise jaws flipped 180 degrees creating a 0.005" difference between each other and the head out of tram by another 0.005".



I found it necessary to make a clean-up cut in the Grizzly vise jaws to get them running perpendicular and parallel to the base and my mill's table.



Next, I'll cut the blocks to receive 4 cavity mold block halves and drill, then counter-bore the vise blocks for mounting to the vise jaws.



Finally, I'll add a bottom cover to the blocks to keep chips out of the lead-screw and add locking screws to the rear block and clamp screws to the block sides for securing the mold block halves with.

I've shamelessly copied some of the features from BaBore and 44man's vises.

Having fun,

Boomer

[leftiye]

Boomer,
I know your pain (and enjoyment). I'm also making a set of jaws for my Grizzly vise. Thanks for the nice pictures. How do you get anything done with thangs that clean? Must spend alla yer time cleaning up beteen cuts

BTW, if anybody has an urge to make cutters to ream out molds to larger diameters, and plans to do it by hand, maybe you'd find it better to do it with the cutter in a milling machine, and with the mold halves in a vice like these self centering ones. By hand - even with the cutter having a depth controlling collar, and my best "taking it carefully" I get some variance in the width of the bearing bands from one cavity to the next.

[Buckshot]

.................Have you put a TI to each of the jaws (in turn) while clamping them to see if they lift? You can get some 1/16" thick neoprene to attach to the outside (backside?) of each jaw as way covers. I'd also get some 1/8" hard felt and put wipers on the outside of the jaws. Heck, while we're at it drill down through each jaw over each way and then install a springtop Gitts oiler in the hole. Punch out a felt plug and push it down in the oil hole a half inch or so to keep any swarf from getting down to the ways.

Or maybe not? I just like to know there's oil between things that slide or rotate, HA!

..............Buckshot

[Boomer Mikey]

.................Have you put a TI to each of the jaws (in turn) while clamping them to see if they lift? You can get some 1/16" thick neoprene to attach to the outside (backside?) of each jaw as way covers. I'd also get some 1/8" hard felt and put wipers on the outside of the jaws. Heck, while we're at it drill down through each jaw over each way and then install a springtop Gitts oiler in the hole. Punch out a felt plug and push it down in the oil hole a half inch or so to keep any swarf from getting down to the ways.

Or maybe not? I just like to know there's oil between things that slide or rotate, HA!

..............Buckshot

The Grizzly vise has adjustable dovetail ways... they don't lift when adjusted to provide some resistance to movement. I plan on installing oil holes in the block support jaw that has the guide rods sliding through it along with spring loaded ball bearing check valves.

I don't think guide rods are necessary; they don't hurt anything, and may provide additional rigidness.

I can't stand walking on crunchies and the boss gets mad at me for bringing chips in the house so I usually end up cleaning up after a cut or two and use chip shields often.

I don't have much of experience or patience nowadays so I usually end up doing things at least twice.

I used a roughing end-mill last night for my first time to hog out the mold slot and broke 3 of them... one caught a large chip and tried to re-cut it along with the heavy chip load and broke the flute, another lost it's edge and snapped when the coolant ran out, and the third one got dropped and broke a flute. I like the smaller chips they make and they use less power. I hope enco has them on sale...

Having fun,

Boomer

[deltaenterprizes]

I bought my centering vise from a compant in Pittsburg because Grizzly was out of stock and am glad I did. This thing is a bear weighing about 70 lbs and already has guide rods and cost just a little more than the one from Grizzly. The name on the vise is Edison, but I can't find anything on them.

[Boomer Mikey]

I saw mention of the Edison vise in one of your earlier posts and tried to find one. I couldn't find one.

Boomer

[Boomer Mikey]

I didn't break any more endmills and enco had all the endmills I could afford on sale so Ive been working on the vise mold block jaw set for several evenings. Several problems came up because of my lack of experience.

The block halves warped while removing all the material for the pockets that hold the mold halves... I'm using 12L14. I should have roughed out all the parts before drilling and reaming for the guide rods.



The guide rod holes aren't straight, my mill doesn't have a lapped quill resulting in quite a bit of slop during boring operations with the quill unlocked and the square column supports a 300+ pound gear head assembly; pushing up or pulling down on the mill head will result in deflection of the head up to 0.015". This makes it necessary to bore and ream the holes, fit the guide rods, then return the assembly to the table and mill the blocks to be true to the guide rods, then true the blocks to those surfaces.

I would really like to get a turret head mill but I don't have the room or money for one so I have to make what I have work.

After squaring the new jaw set again and taking a skim cut on the mold pockets the new jaw set is reasonably repeatable... 0.0005".



The original removable vise jaws weren't anywhere near square and the mounting holes were out of position after milling the step on the jaws parallel to the mill's table; I couldn't use them as a template for drilling holes. I made a custom transfer punch from drill rod in the lathe to mark the hole locations on my new jaws for drilling and counter boring... that worked well.



All that's left to do is to tap and counter bore for the 4MM socket head cap screws I'm going to use to secure the mold block halves in each jaw and make a set of spacer blocks for 4 cavity and 2 cavity mold blocks.



I plan to make 2 cavity molds to RCBS 2 cavity mold outside dimensions and 4 cavity molds to Lyman 4 cavity outside mold dimensions that will use RCBS or LEE handles.


Having fun,

Boomer

[leftiye]

FWIW, I just got one of the Grizzly self centering vises recently, and have been buying reamers and drills to put in the guide rods, as well as trueing up my other milling machine vise, and squaring up the pieces of aluminum that I plan to use for mold block holders.

Last night I got around to taking the removeable vice jaws off of it and taking it apart. The threads in the jaws were found to be abhorrently loose. Not real horrible in lash, but just plain sloppy in side wobble. The threaded holes in the jaw blocks must be .020" at least bigger than the screw. And, to make matters worse, the thread is something like 22mm with 6 1/2 threads per inch (no way to cut that on an inch lathe). Threaded acme rod , nuts, dies, and everything else is out of this world costly. I can only see the possibility of boring out the threads in the jaw blocks, and making brass sleeves to press into the holes, making a new lead screw, and threading them with a smaller (22mm is about 7/8" and there is room to put a 3/4" or 5/8" screw into the sleeves) standard home made thread that is lapped for proper fit.

I do see that back lash could be a porblem, as babore says , causing cutter chatter to happen. I also think that the guide rods may be critical in keeping the mold halves from ofsetting from cutter thrust and making oval cavities.

Again FWIW, I guess grizzly is on a par with Enco, and sells the worst of the chink garbage. I'd send it back in a heart beat, but the cost of the shipping both ways that I'd lose would be more than the cost of the vise.

[Boomer Mikey]

I understand your frustration; I didn't expect much more than what I paid $125 for. I installed set screws with brass tips to increase the force necessary to slide the guide rods through the jaws... the same effect as tightening a gibb. I don't expect cutting forces to be so great as to overcome the friction to cause chatter.

Boomer

[Buckshot]

Again FWIW, I guess grizzly is on a par with Enco, and sells the worst of the chink garbage. I'd send it back in a heart beat, but the cost of the shipping both ways that I'd lose would be more than the cost of the vise.

...............Kurt has a nice one

Self-Centering Vise, 4" Part No. SCD430 Price: $1,932.35 USD

Kurt has two Self-Centering vises, a 4" jaw
width (SCD430) and a 6" jaw width
(SCD640). Jaw opening on the 4" model is
6.25" and 8" on the 6". Centering accuracy
from minimum to maximum opening is
0.0006" with 0.0002" repeatability. Both
movable jaws are Anglock design with zero
lift. A unique feature is an adjustment that
allows the centerline of the jaws to be set.
This is especially important when mounting
several vises on one machine and all
centerlines must match.

..................Buckshot

[Boomer Mikey]

[QUOTE=Buckshot;514415]...............Kurt has a nice one

Self-Centering Vise, 4" Part No. SCD430 Price: $1,932.35 USD/QUOTE]

I was going to mention this; I can't justify buying a vise that cost more than my milling machine when it was new and I don't have the skills or equipment to make anything approaching that level of quality and precision.

If this doesn't work I can try to make another lead screw slightly oversize and try to lap it in for minimum play or remove the jaws from the vise and fit backlash nuts to them. My cheap Chinese lathe does cut metric threads (I've ground acme thread cutting tools before and turned acme threads). Worst case would be to get a couple of bars of acme thread and nuts from from enco or MSC and fit them together as Buckshot suggested earlier with taper pin splice joints. Spring or jam backlash nuts aren't hard to make and I would prefer the brass or bronze nuts anyway.

All of this could be done for less than the cost of the original vise and could be a waste of time. Money I don't have, and time... well, I have more of that than money at the moment and I could learn something.

If I was in the business of making molds I could justify the cost of a Kurt vise and the cost of a turret head mill for that matter. I wasted more money buying Chinese vises and trying to make them "good enough" than the Kurt vise in the picture cost. Some things are worth their cost... Kurt products are worth their cost.

How is the new enco mill Buckshot? I want one real bad but my boss insists that I don't.

Still having fun,

Boomer

[Boomer Mikey]

I'm still working on the vise jaws and spacer blocks... almost done.

I ordered 50 sticks of drill rod, a 6 foot 5/8" x 1.5" bar of 6061 aluminum and some 3/16" x 1-1/4" flat stock material to make a few mould blocks and sprue plates.

I need to make a few fixtures for my tool grinder and grind some lathe form tools for gas check shanks, lube grooves, crimp grooves, and learn how to grind a nose radius form tool.

I plan to make a pair of finish "D" bit and a roughing "D" bit reamers to see if I can make a reasonable copy of a Lyman 225107 .22 mould. I should be able to rough cut the cavities within 0.020" of finish size or less to save wear and abuse to the finish reamer.

I'm going to use 1/4" alignment pins in the mould blocks and fabricate a set of 0.2485" alignment pins to fit in 0.249" reamed holes in the blocks to act as guide/alignment rods during the cutting process adding additional stability and replace them with 0.250" or 0.251" press fit round end pins similar to what RCBS uses or I may use a truncated cone shape on the alignment pin.

Still having fun,

Boomer

[fido]

Nice ideas boys.

I have been trying to get a tool path going fo a CNC mill. I have no problem drawing the bullet but I can't get the tool path applied to it.

I will be watching this thread for sure. Keep the picks coming.
STephen