Home made V-Blocks [2048x1235 - 568KB] | Poal: Say what you want.

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Home made V-Blocks [2048x1235 - 568KB] (pic8.co)

First thing to do was to cut off a length that would be enough to make two V-Blocks. Making them in a pair should ensure that they turn out the same, even if they are not to any particularly precise dimension. The stock was clamped into my horizontal bandsaw and cutting began. https://pic8.co/sh/y2pxru.jpg

21 minutes later... https://pic8.co/sh/zPc8za.jpg

Yep, it took a while to cut through. But, I have the weight of the saw set very light and I'm running it very slowly to break in the blade. It's an old (formerly rusty as fuck), but otherwise previously unused blade, so I want to be nice to it for a while until it's broken in well. I'm not on the clock, so a slow cut doesn't bother me, and because it shuts off automatically at the end of the cut, I can do other shit. The band saw did a really nice job though: https://pic8.co/sh/67dYcY.jpg

The stock was sanded roughly flat on one face, then clamped in the mill vise with a piece of soft wire on the other side (so only one side would control the registration of the part. The rusty sides of this hot rolled bar stock were then slowly brought to flat and square. https://pic8.co/sh/Lfttoi.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/weLuZl.jpg

Once all 4 sides were flat and square, the ends were also squared off. For the first end, I used a precision square, turned out ok. For the second end, I set up a test indicator in the quill and used that to dial in the vertical side. This probably turned out better, top to bottom deviation was about 5 micron (the indicator resolution is 2 micron per tick). https://pic8.co/sh/KZDsBi.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/PCX3Q5.jpg

I laid out some lines for about where I would cut the features. This isn't really for actually cutting to, it's more just a sanity check so I don't accidentally cut a featuer on the wrong side or something stupid. https://pic8.co/sh/FUIHes.jpg

The block was clamped longitudinally at a 45 degree angle (as accurately as I can currently). https://pic8.co/sh/UkpTgE.jpg

To cut the V, I set up the milling cutter on a line scribed down the middle, then it was just a process of stepping in and over by the same amount each time (1mm each direction per cut) until the V was the desired size. I stopped a little short of my scribe lines, as I want to do another cut later to get a better surface finish. Here the surface finish is turd. This is because I slightly burned up the milling cutter I was using when (I think) I hit a hard spot on the face of the steel. That made the corners of the cutter round over a bit, and consequently made it flex and grind a bit, leading to shitty finish on both the bottom and sides (I should have climb milled the last cut to avoid the side milling issues). https://pic8.co/sh/OFXv4x.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/8f6YOr.jpg

The smaller V was cut with a smaller, and not fucked, end mill. This one went much more smoothly (actually). But somehow I fucked it up a bit and made it about 0.3mm off center. This isn't a big deal though as I can fix that up later as well, when I get or make some tooling to accurately locate the V, rather than just trying to hit a scribe line by eye. It'll work fine, just have to be aware that the blocks need to be aligned correctly for the V to line up until I fix it. https://pic8.co/sh/hfYc2W.jpg

With the V's cut, All that remained was side pockets to allow for (another future project) clamps to be used to hold stock in the V-Block. These were cut 6x6mm, using a 5mm end mill I cut a 6mm deep slot, then side milled 0.5mm (by the DRO) off each side to give a 6mm wide slot. Going in directly with a 6mm end mill would likely have resulted in a slightly wider slot that was a little off center due to deflection of the cutter in the material. The slots were done in several passes down, then side milling full height. https://pic8.co/sh/84treb.jpg

To hold the block parallel during this operation it was sat on two parallels that were offset from the vise jaws by a couple of smaller parallels and held apart by a spring. This prevented any possibility of the block seating on the remaining round corners (which I left on to have the final pieces be 48x48mm, and because I wanted to leave a reminder of where this tool came from). https://pic8.co/sh/o5GGix.jpg

With the features machined, it was back to the band saw to separate the pair. https://pic8.co/sh/Fom0Zu.jpg

Then the band sawn faces were squared up and cut to length (45mm each). https://pic8.co/sh/chEHB4.jpg

The finish looks a little ratty, mainly due to the milling cutter getting damaged part way through cleaning up the faces. I didn't want to change to another cutter and risk hitting another hard spot and damaging that one too, so I pushed through. Not to worry, I have plans well under way for making another tool that will allow me to fix that issue... https://pic8.co/sh/KcpuX8.jpg

So, I needed to mill an angle on some round stock (upcoming post). To do that I need a way of holding it securely in the mill vise. That meant a V-Block of some sort. I could have gone on ebay, ali-express or amazon and bought a fairly precise one for very little money, but.... I had a length of 2" solid steel square bar sitting on the floor. So, I decided to make my own. First thing to do was to cut off a length that would be enough to make two V-Blocks. Making them in a pair should ensure that they turn out the same, even if they are not to any particularly precise dimension. The stock was clamped into my horizontal bandsaw and cutting began. https://pic8.co/sh/y2pxru.jpg 21 minutes later... https://pic8.co/sh/zPc8za.jpg Yep, it took a while to cut through. But, I have the weight of the saw set very light and I'm running it very slowly to break in the blade. It's an old (formerly rusty as fuck), but otherwise previously unused blade, so I want to be nice to it for a while until it's broken in well. I'm not on the clock, so a slow cut doesn't bother me, and because it shuts off automatically at the end of the cut, I can do other shit. The band saw did a really nice job though: https://pic8.co/sh/67dYcY.jpg The stock was sanded roughly flat on one face, then clamped in the mill vise with a piece of soft wire on the other side (so only one side would control the registration of the part. The rusty sides of this hot rolled bar stock were then slowly brought to flat and square. https://pic8.co/sh/Lfttoi.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/weLuZl.jpg Once all 4 sides were flat and square, the ends were also squared off. For the first end, I used a precision square, turned out ok. For the second end, I set up a test indicator in the quill and used that to dial in the vertical side. This probably turned out better, top to bottom deviation was about 5 micron (the indicator resolution is 2 micron per tick). https://pic8.co/sh/KZDsBi.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/PCX3Q5.jpg I laid out some lines for about where I would cut the features. This isn't really for actually cutting to, it's more just a sanity check so I don't accidentally cut a featuer on the wrong side or something stupid. https://pic8.co/sh/FUIHes.jpg The block was clamped longitudinally at a 45 degree angle (as accurately as I can currently). https://pic8.co/sh/UkpTgE.jpg To cut the V, I set up the milling cutter on a line scribed down the middle, then it was just a process of stepping in and over by the same amount each time (1mm each direction per cut) until the V was the desired size. I stopped a little short of my scribe lines, as I want to do another cut later to get a better surface finish. Here the surface finish is turd. This is because I slightly burned up the milling cutter I was using when (I think) I hit a hard spot on the face of the steel. That made the corners of the cutter round over a bit, and consequently made it flex and grind a bit, leading to shitty finish on both the bottom and sides (I should have climb milled the last cut to avoid the side milling issues). https://pic8.co/sh/OFXv4x.jpg https://pic8.co/sh/8f6YOr.jpg The smaller V was cut with a smaller, and not fucked, end mill. This one went much more smoothly (actually). But somehow I fucked it up a bit and made it about 0.3mm off center. This isn't a big deal though as I can fix that up later as well, when I get or make some tooling to accurately locate the V, rather than just trying to hit a scribe line by eye. It'll work fine, just have to be aware that the blocks need to be aligned correctly for the V to line up until I fix it. https://pic8.co/sh/hfYc2W.jpg With the V's cut, All that remained was side pockets to allow for (another future project) clamps to be used to hold stock in the V-Block. These were cut 6x6mm, using a 5mm end mill I cut a 6mm deep slot, then side milled 0.5mm (by the DRO) off each side to give a 6mm wide slot. Going in directly with a 6mm end mill would likely have resulted in a slightly wider slot that was a little off center due to deflection of the cutter in the material. The slots were done in several passes down, then side milling full height. https://pic8.co/sh/84treb.jpg To hold the block parallel during this operation it was sat on two parallels that were offset from the vise jaws by a couple of smaller parallels and held apart by a spring. This prevented any possibility of the block seating on the remaining round corners (which I left on to have the final pieces be 48x48mm, and because I wanted to leave a reminder of where this tool came from). https://pic8.co/sh/o5GGix.jpg With the features machined, it was back to the band saw to separate the pair. https://pic8.co/sh/Fom0Zu.jpg Then the band sawn faces were squared up and cut to length (45mm each). https://pic8.co/sh/chEHB4.jpg The finish looks a little ratty, mainly due to the milling cutter getting damaged part way through cleaning up the faces. I didn't want to change to another cutter and risk hitting another hard spot and damaging that one too, so I pushed through. Not to worry, I have plans well under way for making another tool that will allow me to fix that issue... https://pic8.co/sh/KcpuX8.jpg

[–] • 1 pt

Once that blade is in the metal does it require constant lubrication or is it fine once the cavity can hold a bit?

I don't run flood coolant (don't have it set up and it's basically more mess than it's worth for a hobby shop, but pretty much essential for a commercial shop). I'm really not running enough coolant at all, need to get some water soluble oil to use in a spray bottle for coolant or something similar, maybe a mist system (but they can have issues in terms of creating an aerosol of coolant that you can breathe in).

Here, I'm just using some cutting oil which seems to help a bit, but it will cut dry ok, as long as the depth of cut isn't too much or feed rate too high. I'm very much still learning, so I tend to run conservative (because I don't have a drawer full of spare end mills).

I'm not really sure that surface lubrication really does much, as the mill cutter is cutting below the surface that has the lubrication on it, effectively sweeping it away before it has a chance to do much. That's why water soluble oil is something that's on my list. Currently, I'm basically doing a cut, then check how hot the end mill and work piece are and wait for things to cool down a bit if they are too hot. That's not ideal though.

(post is archived)