Good lighting helps with the pictures that I take, and I typically use two lamps, one on each side. About a week ago the weak plastic base of one of them (of course, the cheaper one!) broke off:
I decided to make something a "little" bit stronger by using a small rectangular piece of 6061. It was also an excuse to try out the higher HP motor on my VFD conversion. I started taking a 0.5" wide cut, and taking 0.030" and larger chunks to see how well it worked. Here I am cutting with a two-insert 1" dia cutter:
You can see the progressively larger cuts on the first side (top to bottom, all of them at 0.5"):
but on the other side I got more aggressive and cut the 1" inch cut on 3 passes: 0.3", 0.3", and 0.4" (again, all of them at 0.5"):
I then finished cleaning up the edges a little (no effort was made to make the part look pretty):
then drill all 5 holes:
The finished piece next to the broken one:
and in use, with the original cheap lamp:
and with the heavier, much nicer lamp:
Will
