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| Low profile clamps |
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| kwackers:
Having spent many times trying to hold thin parts in the mill by any and all means possible, I thought I'd get round to making some low profile clamps. Picture below pretty much sums them up. I've made 8, 4 can be seen holding the casting to the bed, three others are sat to the side and the one in the bottom left is in it's component parts to show what's involved. To fit my mill the T nut is a piece of 3/4" bar cut to length and drilled 2 x 8mm, one holds a 16mm long grub screw, this is used to clamp the nut to the bed, the other is a 16mm cap head screw used to perform the 'cam' action for the clamp. To work as a cam the cap head screw has it's head machined 1mm eccentric (chuck some bar in a 4 jaw, drill and tap, move the bar over by 1mm, screw each screw in and turn the head round - it'll now be offset by 1mm). The brass head is a length of 1" bar, drilled 8mm clearance and the bored out leaving a couple of mm using an endmill (flat bottomed hole). The cap head should be a nice fit in this - being eccentric turning it will provide the cam action necessary to clamp the workpiece. Finally make sure the length of the clamp isn't too long. It never occurred to me until I had a set made and then I couldn't drop them into the gap on my table. Fortunately before I hacksawed them up into ordinary T nuts I realised I could machine the corners off to enable me to drop it in at an angle. The shot below should show what I mean. IMG_5611 by zx12, on Flickr Next step is to see if the 10 year old blacking solution I've got in the cupboard still works - if so I'll black them up. (The grub and screw are stainless so they'll be fine) |
| raynerd:
They look amazing Kwacks and will certainly be a future project. Chris |
| cidrontmg:
Excellent. To be copied as soon as I get some 6 mm grub screws - my mill has far narrower slots (BF16). Monday, that is. :thumbup: Many thanks. :wave: P.S. Did I see a couple of tool marks on the mill table... (? :offtopic: anyway...) |
| kwackers:
--- Quote from: cidrontmg on October 02, 2010, 04:07:26 PM ---Excellent. To be copied as soon as I get some 6 mm grub screws - my mill has far narrower slots (BF16). Monday, that is. :thumbup: Many thanks. :wave: P.S. Did I see a couple of tool marks on the mill table... (? :offtopic: anyway...) --- End quote --- Yeah the mill came with those (it's an old Elliott 00 Omnimill), saves me doing them - plus if I ever added any myself I wouldn't want to cry every time I saw them. (they're not bad enough to warrant any effort in repairing - the light makes them look worse). |
| Chuck in E. TN:
I might be missing something, but it looks to me like the casting shown above could slide out of the clamps toward the operator. How does this style of clam work? Any drawings, C-O-C? |
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