Advanced Grinding Rest (Harold Hall)

[Kim]

Nice save with the bolt slots, but perhaps you could have used 6mm with no penalty?

Yes, I probably could have used 6mm, but I have tons of 1/4" bolts sitting around in my shop, and almost no 6mm hardware (probably a few in my Grizzly lathe of course ).  So, I chose to go ahead and widen to 1/4" just to save my self some grief in the future.  1/4" is everywhere over here; 6mm, not so much.

Kim

[Dave Otto]

Nice looking part Kim!

Dave

[Kim]

Thanks Dave!

Today I got some time in my shop to work on the Top Slide.

I wanted to use 12L14 for as many of the pieces as I could, since it works easier.  But it seems that you can only get 12L14 in round or square stock, not rectangular.  That's why to Table (previous part) was made with 1018.  The top slide, that connects to the table, is 1/2" thick, but 1.25" wide.  So I used a length of 1.25" square 12L14 and cut it in half.  And this is where I had to borrow the Mill Vise, to clamp into the horizontal saw.  It worked quite well, if I do say so myself!


With the vise out of the way, I did the Table, which was covered in my previous post.  After I finished that, I remounted the vise and used that to hold this part, square it up to the required thickness & length.


After marking up the part, I set it up in the mill to drill a long hole, all the way through the part.  This was almost 2.5" long.  I was a little worried about the drill wandering. I tried to take it slow and easy, and keep the chips clear.  This picture shows just before I started the drilling operation:


And this shows after I broke through the far side!


Luckily, it looks like the hole came out very straight and true.  I'm happy with it at least.


Then back in the mill to drill a 7/16" slot.  I started by drilling the two ends.


I then made multiple passes with the 13/32" end mill, and then did the final pass with a 7/16" end mill (2 flute of course!)


Next, I drilled and tapped the two holes for mounting the Table (love those forming taps!):


Then I changed the setup to cut the dovetail.  Here you can see I've cut the first side and am just finishing up the 2nd side.


Now, this side of the dove tail was made 1/64" deeper than the other side.  I assume that is to make it so only the bottom of the dovetail slides against the slide.  Anyway, it turns out that 5/16" is the maximum depth of my dovetail cutter!  Oops!  So I had a little 1/64" nubbin along the top that I had to take care of.  You can see it in this close up.


I considered just filing it off, but instead, I carefully moved the dovetail cutter out and up just a tad and did another pass or two.  I think it came out just about as good as you please.

And here's the completed part.


It even fits with its mate!  I'm pretty chuffed


Thanks for following along,
Kim

[Nicolas]

Looking great so far

Nicolas

[Kim]

Thanks Nicolas!
Kim

[smfr]

You're making fine work of this, Kim. Following along here!

Simon

[Arbalest]

Excellent work so far Kim. I'm particularly impressed with your deep hole drilling! 

[Roger B]

Looking good    I have the book and have looked at this several times. I will be very interested in your experiences with this. I am always torn between the time and effort to make and use a cutter grinder and the cost of buying new tools 

[Don1966]

Very nice work Kim and you cut through those dovetails like a trooper. Beautiful work buddy.

 
Don

[Kim]

Thanks for the comments Simon, Arbalest, Roger, and Don,

I am always torn between the time and effort to make and use a cutter grinder and the cost of buying new tools 

Yeah, I'm with you on that!  And in the past it has just seemed like this kind of project would just be keeping me away from making the things I want to make!  But somehow, this time as looked into it and considered my next project, this just seemed like a good challenge.  Now it IS my project, not just a thing I'm making to get to my project (if you know what I mean).  Since we're all doing this for fun, I figure when the time is right, you'll feel like this is a fun project.  If it never feels like that, then you'll have to decide if you want buy one.

Now it remains to be seen if my time and effort will result in something with enough accuracy to satisfy me.  I have high hopes!  But I'm having fun making it reardless, and that's what counts

Kim

[Johnb]

Looking good Kim.

[Kim]

Thanks John!
Kim

[Arbalest]

For what it's worth Kim, I think this is a very worthwhile project. I've not seen anything like this to buy off the shelf anyway. If it did become "available" from the Far East I doubt it would be as well made as yours is so far!

[pgp001]

Looking very good indeed , but I have just a small suggestion for you if you don't mind.

Where you had the bit that your dovetail cutter missed on the first pass, I would have actually put a couple of flats along there rather than taking it to a sharp corner.
If you are going to get any binding between the slides that is where it will likely be, and a small amount of corner clearance might be to your advantage.

Phil

[steamer]

Looking very good indeed , but I have just a small suggestion for you if you don't mind.

Where you had the bit that your dovetail cutter missed on the first pass, I would have actually put a couple of flats along there rather than taking it to a sharp corner.
If you are going to get any binding between the slides that is where it will likely be, and a small amount of corner clearance might be to your advantage.

Phil

Having some clearance at the corner is a must!....if you don't have any, get yourself a file and make some.    If it's touching at the corner...that's the only place it will be touching, and the slide won't repeat and won't be very stiff.

Dave