Horizontal Milling Attachment

[cfellows]

My gears arrived today.  Pretty fast shipping from China, I bought them on April 23 which was only 10 days ago.  Tracking was pretty timely also.





The OD on the big gear is just under 2" and the ID is a little over 1.25".  I plan to make the attachment accept R8 collets and will use a piece of DOM tubing 1.5" OD by 1" ID for the spindle.  I'm going to first try using a flanged, plain cast iron bushing for the working side.  I didn't have a large enough piece of cast iron on hand so I checked with Speedy Metals for a 2" diameter, 12" long piece.  After choking on their price of $19 + $18 shipping, I searched around on the internet and found a 5 pound dumbell weight at Academy Sports for $3.99 + tax.  They have a store less than 5 miles away, so this morning I drove over and picked one up.



It's almost 6" diameter and 11/16" thick and already has a 1" hole in the center.  I'll use a 2 3/8" hole saw to cut out the center, then finish it up in the lathe.

Chuck

[cfellows]

The cast iron weight turned out to be something other than cast iron.  My hole saw made it through the paint and that was it.  I thought it might just be hardened from the casting process, but after cutting more than .1" deep with a carbide end mill, it's still hard and shiny.   On to plan B, after I decide what plan B is...

Chuck

[Dave Otto]

Hi Chuck

Go to McMaster Carr, MSC, ENCO, etc. and order a nice slice of class 40 cast iron, it will make your life much easier.

Dave

[sbwhart]

Chuck

Try cooking the dumb bell in a fire, get it good a red and let it cool down slowly in the fire.

Stew

[steamer]

YUP...probably chilled iron.   You could anneal it....or just get some G40 Durabar.....life is too short to cut hard dumbbell weights......just sayin.

Dave

[RickBarnes]

Only a little related, but while cleaning an old garage out, I found 20 iron ingots from a old foundry. I have no idea of the alloy, or anything other than they are hard, heavy, sand cast, and a magnet sticks to them.  Would anybody have a use for these, assuming I could find out more about them?

[Lew Hartswick]

Only a little related, but while cleaning an old garage out, I found 20 iron ingots from a old foundry. I have no idea of the alloy, or anything other than they are hard, heavy, sand cast, and a magnet sticks to them.  Would anybody have a use for these, assuming I could find out more about them?

It'd be nice to know where in the world you are before we even think about size shape etc.
   ,,,lew,,,

[RickBarnes]

Sorry, trout my profile showed that.  Muskegon Michigan

[cfellows]

I've been noodling around with this for a few days.  I almost convinced myself to go with tapered roller bearings,  but a couple of days ago, while at the local Goodwill store, I found a couple of these for $3 apiece...



I don't think this attachment will get a lot of use and I mostly want to keep it simple, so I'm sticking with cast iron plain bearings for now.  I was able to easily cut a chunk out of the middle with a 2.5" hole saw.





The finished piece is 2.3" major diameter with a 1.625" shoulder on either side.  The ID is 1.275, same as the ID on the bevel gear.



I will bore a 1.625" hole through one side of the square tubing and secure the bearing to it with 4 bolts in a circular pattern though the flange.  The other side will have a smaller cast iron plain bearing, similar in shape but with 3/4" ID, and secured in the same manner.

Chuck

[PJW]

Thats a cheep way to buy cast iron, looks like it machines up nice!

[cfellows]

Thats a cheep way to buy cast iron, looks like it machines up nice!

Yeah, it had a little bit of a frothy void at one spot but nothing serious. 

So here's some more pictures.  I first used a 1.5" hole saw to cut an opening for the shoulder part of the bushing.



Then I used a boring bar to open the hole up to 1.625".  Here's the bushing sitting in the freshly bored hole.  I used a flycutter to flatten the area the bushing sits on.



And here I've drilled and tapped holes in the housing to secure the bushing with 10-32 button head screws.



Before I bore he bottom hole I'll start on the spindle.

Chuck

[cfellows]

One last set of pictures for the day.  I started on the spindle using a 4" length of 1.5" x 1" DOM tubing.  This first picture shows the taper I turned for the R8 collet (hard to see... ).



And, with a collet inserted...



Here I've turned the spindle down to fit inside the cast iron bushing.



And inserted into the bushing...



Tomorrow I'll finish up the spindle and fit the bevel gear.

Chuck

[Don1966]

Cool Chuck! I am wanting to see how good it works. What is the game plan for alignment once you complete it? Following you progress here buddy.

 
Don

[Lew Hartswick]

That name "Weider" on the weight. Someone record that as it looks like the material is orders of magnitude
better than the ones that have been reported before. :-)
   ...lew...

[cfellows]

Cool Chuck! I am wanting to see how good it works. What is the game plan for alignment once you complete it? Following you progress here buddy.

 
Don

Thanks, Don.  I'm kind of trying not to think about alignment just yet.  My usual approach is to center everything as well as possible and hope for the best.   I will probably hold the pinion in a collet so the vertical position will be adjustable by how far into the collet it's inserted.  The big gear can be slid back and forth and held in place by a couple of grub screws contacting flats on the spindle. 

Setting the angle of the axis when in use is another problem I'll have to grapple with....

Chuck

That name "Weider" on the weight. Someone record that as it looks like the material is orders of magnitude
better than the ones that have been reported before. :-)
   ...lew...

Yeah, I got lucky, that's pretty good quality iron.  The store had 2 of them and I bought them both for $2.99 each.  Keep your eye out at consignment stores, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other stores that sell donated items.  I frequently see weights for sale pretty cheap at these stores.  Garage sales and flea markets may be another good source.

Chuck

Chuck