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Poor Man's Keyway Slotter

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fluxcored:
Hi All,

I need to cut some change gears in the near future and am investigating ways of cutting the slots. I've found Stew's excellent write up http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=1859.0 on how to quickly make a keyway slotter which is more than adequate for my purposes.

However it got me thinking, and I want to throw the idea out there. How about using an old drill press as a quick and easy slotter? I've got a bench top drill press that's just sitting idle. I'm busy making pigtails for mops I bought the other day to turn it into a buffing station and on my project list is an adaptor to turn wooden handles on it also. It'll be great if it also can function as a simple slotter even if only to time me over until I have some quiet time to build a dedicated hand operated slotter.

Oh and I plan to make the gears out of either aluminum, brass or bronze. Soft material so that if I get the gears wrong, it does'nt damage the existing gear train of the lathe.

Regards.

Jasonb:
You can just use a boringh bar holder in the lathe with a square tool that has a vertical cutting edge and plane the slot in with teh carrage a few thou at a time.

The materials you are looking at will be easy, I've done quite a few in steel upto 3/16" wide keys and 1" long like the four in this gear centre

Jason

fluxcored:
Hi Jason,

I planned on doing that but then read that it's a strain on the lathe. But I guess you right, especially with the softer material I'll be using.

Seems I worry and over think things too much.

Thanx.

NickG:
I used the same method Jason suggested to do the aluminium pulley for my lathe.

Jasonb:
Its more the strian it puts on the user than the machine!! I wouldn't want to use it much over the 3/16 keyway width as it does take quite a bit of effort.

One way to lessen the effort and also help guide the tool is to make a plug for your gear out of a scrap bit of similar material and the drill down the joint between the two. This removes a lot of the metal and also gives helps keep the cutter in line.

Jason

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