I needed a BIG spanner !

[awemawson]

Yes I needed a BIG spanner - a 55 mm AF spanner 

Why - well my CNC machine takes CAT40 - DIN 69871 tooling, and the TG100 collet holder that needed tightening takes 55 mm A/F spanner.

Now at the back of my bench lives Grandfathers old adjustable - yes it opens far enough, but a bit crude. Tucked away in my stash of metric spanners is a genuine 55 mm open ended spanner for tightening bolts on the Forth Bridge (yes I know it's riveted  ) -it's a whopping great ungainly thing and far longer and more massive than I need 

[awemawson]

So what to do 

Well what's the point in having a workshop if you don't make it work for you - MAKE a spanner 

Some of you may have noticed that recently I've been playing upgrading my CNC Plasma Table - so cut one !

A quick Autocad drawing, save it as a .DXF, import it to SheetCAM - transfer the result to MACH3 and you should be good to go:

Here's the drawing

[awemawson]

Now I happened to have some 3 mm Zinctec mild steel sheet on the table at the time - I'd intended to cut it from 6 mm but that would probably have been overkill as after all it's only closing a collet.

Result was absolutely splendid, though I say it myself 

The total job took under 10 minutes, from deciding to do it, to taking the final result off the rails of the plasma table, and the best part of that was working out how to draw a hexagonal in Autocad !

... very satisfying

(oh did I say - I LOVE my CNC Plasma Table !!!)

[ieezitin]

Nice job Andrew.. well done on your build, your shop time effort has resulted your capabilities 3 fold with this machine and its ability to quickly manufacture most things quickly.

Anthony.

[John Rudd]

One word sums it up....

Jealous!.... 

[RussellT]

Nice Job Andrew.

Did you think about a 12 point one?

Russell

[shipto]

... very satisfying

(oh did I say - I LOVE my CNC Plasma Table !!!)

Rightly so its something we could probably make use of at work (I certainly could anyway  but I suppose that would be too much like forward thinking for my place  )

[Spurry]

Andrew, lovely job...again.
Can't help but think 6mm would have been kinder on the old fingers, although it's only a collet to tighten.
Pete

[awemawson]

Nice Job Andrew.

Did you think about a 12 point one?

Russell

Little point (sorry, unintentional pun!) Russell - the holder sits inverted in a 'CAT 40 receiver' in the bench vice for tightening, and the spanner never leaves the nut.

Oh and Pete, the 3 mm thick handle only gets a firm hand tweak, then is tapped tight with a nylon mallet, so my fingers don't really suffer !

[mattinker]

Looks like a sort of giant mecano spanner!

[awemawson]

.... he he, I knew I recognized it from my dim and distant past !

Incidentally, I understand that Meccano is no long made in Binns Road, Liverpool, but in the Pas de Calais - what is the world coming to 

[mattinker]

No politics!!

[PekkaNF]

That is the spirit!

Now when you have the steam up, no dout you are building tightening fixture to complement it?
https://www.maritool.com/images/bt30lock-3.JPG

Pekka

[awemawson]

Well Pekka, I don't have anything QUITE so fancy 

My tightening fixture is a simple tapered bore, a restraining lug, and a pair of flats to clamp in the vice - obviously home made, but not by me - I picked it up in a collection of tooling that I bought and it's proved very useful.

[awemawson]

If it's fancy you want I do have a very fancy Tool Pre-Setter that lets you measure and set tool offsets off the machine - very nice bit of kit. I bought it as a 'basketcase' on a chance, but luck was on my side as it turns out that PCM have a small sales office only a couple of miles down the road - I was able to chat them up and extract enough technical information to get it fully functional 


... that said - I rarely use it, and usually measure and set tools on the Beaver Partsmaster directly, using the Heidenhain probe to set references and a Vertex Z height setter to compare lengths.

[PekkaNF]

But ofcourse you do

Those tightening fixtures are very usefull and they don't need to be anything fancy, just good lugs to restrain the torque and good enenoug taper (short one will do) to keep the taper in good condition. Here is one tool that it's better when it is soft. No fancy heat treatig is needed, unless you like annealing one!

Pekka