Maniac Mechanics

2017-09-12T21:58:00.001-07:00

2017-09-12T21:37:00.002-07:00

Homemade Milling Machine

2017-02-26T08:43:00.002-08:00

Alright everyone! I've been away a while, so here's something good.

And a link to the video below:

I designed this milling machine because acquiring a "proper" Bridgeport type mill seemed all but impossible. Large mills are either too heavy or too expensive, and those small bench top models are rarer than black rhinos.

This milling machine was entirely constructed in my garage, making use of a 9 inch South Bend lathe, a stick welder, angle grinder and a pedestal drill press. I machined a morse taper 3 spindle,which accepts common taper tooling, and the head of the machine. The head-spindle assembly mounts angular contact bearings which will actually handle the loads incurred during milling.

The most expensive part of the machine was the the x-y table, which I purchased from Grizzly. Its the 6x18.5 inch, which runs $170 shipped. Total cost of the machine was approximately $270, not counting scavenged parts like the motor, or screws and assorted hardware.

This is, as far as I'm aware, this is the only homemade machine of its kind, with a proper milling head that accepts mt3 tooling, making it extremely versatile. Besides already existing mt3 end mill holders, I've found that you can buy old useless mt3 drill bits by the pound and readily modify the shank for even more endmill holders or flycutters and other tooling.

Also note that I did NOT require a larger milling machine to build this one! Yes, I know there are purchased parts. However, the intent of this design is that anyone with a bit of cash and practically antique shop tools can build a useful milling machine.

There are a number of attempts at building homemade mills on youtube, some of which definitely contributed to my design. This mill is unique for the fact that its large capacity. I have 12in x 8 in x 9 in of machining volume and the rigidity in the spindle and the rest of the construction to to easily cut 1/4 in deep 1/2 inch slots through aluminum. This is a useful machine for "small engine" sized work as opposed to its tiny experimental predecessors.

Soon, I'll be posting some technical drawings of the machine, any maybe even solidworks models. Watch the youtube videos and subscribe to my channel!

Stay tuned!

2013-08-31T17:01:00.001-07:00

2013-08-31T16:53:00.002-07:00

Pictures of my travels

A Cannon

2013-08-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

What says "thank you" like a beautiful cannon? I just finished this new piece. Its a six and-a-half inch long aluminum cast dahlgren pattern cannon. It also came out exceptionally nice.

Freshly cast

Complete

Boring out the barrel

Facing off a wheel

Faced off

Now the other side gets formed

Center drill for the hole

Drilled through

A complete wheel

Cannon pieces ready for assemly

Glueing up the carriage

Ta-da!

2013-08-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

A month and a half ago, two friends along with myself decided to build a large trebuchet. I had built a sizeable trebuchet before using recycled wood from my old deck. It stood about 8 feet tall and hurled a projectile over 100 feet. The materials were not of high quality though which limited the power of that siege engine. The new trebuchet was to be larger but most of all stronger, built of better materials and constructed with superior methods.

The old trebuchet

The frame would be be built from pressure treated 4x4 posts and 2x4s. All the joints would be glued and pinned with wooden dowel for a more tradional look and good strength. Special attention was paid to the throwing arm. The earlier trebuchet was failing at the main pivot. The steel bar serving as the axle stood firm as the wooden arm sagged downward under 70 lbs of counter-weight. The hole through the arm had gone out of round and generally allowed for lots of wobble. The new trebuchet would have a laminated wood throwing arm with flange bearings to take the load and reduce friction for better performance.

Flange bearings, one inch steel axle, and bolts.

This trebuchet is designed to shoot an object weighing two pounds well over 200 yards

The frame, to be glued and pinned

Throwing arm glued and clamped

Posts all mitred ready for assembly.

Because this engine is planned to have a great range, firing it in the neighborhood is right out. That makes transporting this beast necessary. Each side will be glued solid. These solid sides will bolt to the base. Lateral bracing has been designed to bolt on as well.

More to come!

2013-07-28T20:41:00.002-07:00

Home Made Cut-off Blades for the Lathe

2013-01-03T18:12:00.002-08:00

One of the holders which came with the quick change tool post was a cut-off tool holder. These are used to part off a piece after its been turned. You can also use them to cut narrow grooves for anything.

Usually the are made with a carbide tip on a steel shank. An idea came to me the other day. Why not cut out a rectangular section of a scrap circular saw blade? Cut it so that a carbide tooth remains on the end, and you have a great edge and since the teeth are thicker than the blade, it won't bind either.

The result:

This last picture shows some grooves I began to cut. I will be parting off three segments, but first they need a hole bored through for a project...

Not bad. The cutter took a minute to cut out with an angle grinder and the carbide tooth cuts the aluminum like butter. Nice shavings come off.

This worked so well that I will have to find a thicker blade to make a cutter which can handle deeper cuts. Its an excellent reuse of old saw blades, which often still have a few sharp teeth to use.

A Quick Change Tool Post

2013-01-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

My parents bought me a quick change tool post for Christmas.

As you may have gathered from the picture, its made in China. Nonetheless, it seems like a decent tool post. Close tolerances and nice ground surfaces leave me impressed.

The tool post came with a rectangular slab of steel 1/2 an inch thick. You machine the T nut for the lathe. That was an interesting process. I reinforced a piece of angle iron, secured it in the groove, used a fly cutter to mill it vertical, mounted the steel blank on this. An end mill went into the chuck. With this setup, I milled the T-nut down to size. More on that later. I have some videos that will go up on my youtube channel.

Here you see the other holders that came with it. From left to right: A 5/8" boring bar holder, a knurling tool (Its also serving to hold my dial indicator), my threading tool holder, a cut-off tool holder, and my right-hand tool holder. The left-hand bit is in the mounted holder.

The beauty of these tool posts is that the nut on each holder keeps the position of the bit. To change bits, you just turn the handle, remove the current tool, and slide the new one on. Once you've set all the proper heights once, its done. Changing tools no longer takes time. The height is set.

This tool post allows me to take advantage of brief periods of time. I can go out to the garage after school, spend 45 minutes, and actually accomplish something because of the time it saves.

2012-12-23T19:46:00.000-08:00

Finally completed is the sloyd knife for my father. The blade in the previous post actually cracked due to mistreatment while still brittle hard. I cut out another from the same saw blade. Only about an hour lost.

The blade was heated to orange and quenched in oil to harden. I shined it up and reheated it to bring out the temper colors. When the right colors appeared, I quenched the blade in water. The cherry handle was epoxied on, then shaped with rasps and files. The wood was sanded with progressively finer paper then buffed with beeswax for the finish. It just melts into your palm.

2012-12-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

Well, Dad hasn't named anything he wants for Christmas, so I'm making him a knife. The basic shape I took from the book The Complete Modern Blacksmith. Its known as a sloyd knife.

The blade came from an old circular saw blade which had lost most of its carbide teeth. They are made of excellent steel, although perhaps a bit thin. Its probably 3/32."

I believe this piece of wood will make a beautiful handle. I'll use either brass or steel rivets to join the handle sides.

The faint straw yellow color is sort of visible towards the blade. After cutting out the shape, I heated the whole piece of steel to orange hot and quenched it to harden it. Then I put the handle back in and let the heat seep back through to temper the blade end.

This is really a quick project so far. Just draw the outline and cut it out with and angle grinder. I used the grinding wheels to smooth the shape out. Shaping the handle will take the most time. I hope to have it complete with more pictures by next week.

Bill

2012-11-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Below is the plan I used for the waste oil burner nozzle. Not shown is the groove the middle portion where an o-ring fits on.

2012-11-10T18:49:00.003-08:00

2012-11-10T16:55:00.001-08:00

A New Crucible Furnace

2012-09-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

I good friend of mine called recently and told me he had a crucible furnace for me! Well, it has arrived. Its a Johnson 510. If you have any manuals and whatnot, please comment!

Here is the beast. Note the side chimney. The gasses have to actually go down and out, like a kiln. I suppose its good for efficiency, but you can't see the melt or add metal without opening the lid.

The blower. I assume the open pipe is where the gas line attaches. There is a valve right below it.

Pilot burner/ignitor?

The furnace has 2 main burners on tangents. The one visible here is slightly lower.

Chamber is 9.5" wide and 11" deep.

Furnace no. 510
Serial no 1012-T
BTU 120,000

The song of the month

2012-08-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Making a Crucible

2012-07-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

I needed to make a crucible large enough for some future projects. It has been a long process, and at no point was a sure I would succeed, but I believe I have. Coming this far, I think its safe to show how I went about it.

I planned to cast the crucible using a dense castable refractory. I chose it because of its strength, conductivity and the fact that I have a bag and a half left over from making the furnace.

The first thing to make were the wooden patterns.

I didn't have stock large enough to turn the outside pattern, which is 10" tall and 8" wide. Instead, cedar was cut and glued up to form a "barrel." This barrel was then sanded and carved to shape as it was too big to fit on the lathe!

Below is the internal pattern. This was composed of glued up cedar 4x4 posts. I use a lot of cedar. It is all reclaimed from rebuilding our deck.

Now this was the mold that I cast the crucible in. It was a wooden box in which I had poured concrete backfill and a plaster face around the patterns. The plaster would give me a smooth layer that could be sanded and repaired in case the pouring didn't work well. It came out well, but I'm still happy I used the plaster. The crucible, after it had set up in the mold got stuck. Plaster was easier to break away from the crucible than concrete would have been.

With my green crucible de-molded, a kiln was in order. This is old firebricks stacked up. Barbecue charcoal is the fuel.

It became rather hot in there...

And the crucible! The patch is from my initial attempt at firing, which I will not speak of.

Ok...I'll tell.

I tried to fire it in the furnace with the evaporator oil burner. I'm supposed to be able to control it, but I failed. It malfunctioned, spat out a huge flame and spalled the crucible a bit. It hadn't really fired yet, so I patched it. The patch appears to have completely adhered.

Now for some melting!

2012-05-25T13:39:00.001-07:00

I've finally come through with pictures! The lathe has been mounted since spring break in April. I have already made parts on it, including siphon burner nozzles for the foundry. I have faced off a mini anvil paperweight as well to test out the versatility. An amazing fun machine it is. These pictures show what will be the permanent home, for now of the lathe. Since I took these, I have added considerably to my tooling. I bought from a machinist going out of business and from Fazzio's several large drill bits. One is 18" long and 3/4" across. I will use it for drilling my miniature cannons. That bit realistically needs to be used in a longer lathe though.

I have replaced the belt since this picture and welded a 1/4 socket extension, which fits the 3 jaw chuck, to a handle for a chuck key. It works great. I use 7mm hex keys for the 4 jaw. If anyone knows where to buy real 7mm chuck keys, please leave a comment.

Hope you enjoyed. I will have lots of pictures of machining and projects coming soon! School is almost out.

Just showing off another Lathe Picture

2012-05-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have built a bench and everything for my lathe. I just need to get around to uploading the new stuff. Grrrr. why do I have to be so busy.

My new old South Bend Lathe

2012-02-20T04:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally found one. It took over a year of searching, but I finally found a nice lathe within my budget.

Its a model C9W 9" South Bend. Made in in 1938. The catalog number is 415-YA

Many more pictures to come within the next two days. I'll be working on a real bench for it as well.

Stop Online Censorship

2012-01-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

Congress is about to vote on the SOPA bill. Known as the "Sop Online Piracy Act," this bill is like usual misleading. In reality, it carries an extremely dangerous potential for abuse, letting an overbearing government have access to another corner of your life.

Please go to this site and sign the petition. I urge you to research this bill and find out what its really about. Flex the muscles of democracy and fight against this bill.

http://stopcensorship.org/

Sign some other petitions to. Google this bill and see whats wrong with it, or one day, you might never have that ability again.

2012-01-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, I stumbled across a machined steel cannon barrel at a yard sale. I quickly made it mine. Just, recently, I have overcome the main stumbling block that prevented any work- the hardness of the steel.

As I bought it, the steel the cannon was turned from was incredibly hard. None of the drill bits I had on any speed would even bite the metal. I decided it was time to try and anneal the steel.

I built a fire in the forge and put the cannon over it, with firebicks all around. The polished surface readily showed the temper colors that appear on steel heated to a few hundred degrees. The point is not to make the steel glow, but to blue it.

This was successful. With the steel annealed, I was able to drill the vent hole and two shallow divots that provided support for the trunions, which were later welded in place.

The steel has turned a nice dark color. I like it.

This is one of the wheels in progress. I turned some wood "hubs," drilled holes and inserted wooden dowels. The next part will be the actual rim.

This is the carriage propped up slightly. It will actually be about 2.5x higher. The wheels will be about 7" in diameter to give a sense of scale.

You can see the vent in this photo.

More to come! The carriage will be completed and stained soon. Come back and check soon.

Cannon Casting

2011-12-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

I've been working on trying to cast a cannon on and off for a few months now. Today, I cast one that looks nice, but unfortunately, didn't turn out hollow. The steel pipe core filled with aluminum.

The resulting cannon. It looks great, but wound up being solid! Bummer. I'll try again. Stay tuned!

Inside An Air Regulator~ Because you don't trust the one on the compressor

2011-10-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Ah those magical devices! They regulate your air feeding into some contraption. Ever wonder how one works? You didn't want to take apart your $50 tool though, so you lived in ignorance. Until now.

I have an air regulator. I bought it for a quarter at a yard sale. It worked great, but then started leaking along the gasket in the middle. I figured I could fix it easy.

My Regulator hooked up.

without screws

Big spring

That is the screw in the top that puts pressure on the screw.

Gasket thing. It wasn't sealing against the metal well.
I puts some hylomar on it and that did the trick.

Button that is pressed on by the dimple in the piece above.

Input. Unfortunately, you can't see the gizmos in there. Not anything significant though

You are enlightened. Remember, you heard it on Maniac Mecahnics first.