Seems like a bit of a challenging part to make. It seems like it could still be simplified though. Would machinable uniforce clamps be too tall for your fixture? I think they might be able to hold the 2nd op good enough. Those round machinable fixture clamps might be good enough too, but I haven't used them much. If it's too hard to do the island, soft jaws method, maybe getting bars that are already milled to the right thickness, then window machining several out of a larger piece might be the way to go. You could leave tabs that can be sanded away later, or you could do all the holes first, put in the single screw, and that alone I think could possibly handle slotting around the outside in a few passes down. Or possibly do the holes, then mill two sides of two pieces next to each other creating a slot. This slot would be widen enough that a threaded hole in the fixture can then be used with a screw and a bar that can be placed across two pieces to clamp them down, allowing you to mill the other sides of the part. But I don't know much about the heat treating your doing, so maybe using smaller stock makes that more difficult. I'm just starting to get into heat treating and I definitely can see how if you're able to hard mill first it means less hand finishing.
I have tried the uniform clamps for this, and I think I ended up not liking the way it clamped. Might have been using the wrong size uniforce though. While there are quite a few ways to fixture these a lot better, this is what I have found to work for the time being. The biggest issue with this fixture is I can only do one at a time. As far as the heat treating goes.. 17-4 hardened is actually not too difficult to machine. The benefit of it being hardened already is: Hitting tolerances are easy, and the surface finish ends up being nicer. What would be awesome is if I had a 5th axis and I did the window machining trick. Than I could machine both sides in one setup haha. The trickiest thing with these lock-bar inserts is the fact that the counter bore and that countersink have to match up perfectly.
@@split141x I think you could totally window machine this part on your 4th axis. I've done similar things before. I'm not sure you'd even need to do a window, just machining most of it then machining down to a thin tab could work. It's already stiff material, then you're hardening it too. I don't even think you'd have to buy a dovetail fixture or anything. Keep the collet set up. I think you could probably mill a rectangle in a round bar, then put a set screw in the side. Use a collet stop to have a repeatable length. Or even just give it a shot with some round bar and no extra fixture. And yeah, for prototyping, just doing what you know works is the way to go.
I have actually tried cutting it out of round bar in the 4th. Its not as quick because you can't take as much of a cut, and the 4th is kinda stuck doing pocket clips. I'm kinda strapped for real estate. So I decided I'd rather be able to do all the parts in one go on fixtures, and leave the clips on the 4th. This way I can have the machine run for 15+ hrs unattended. I will say round bar is cheaper than rectangular bar, so you could justify doing it in the 4th just in material costs.
Yea.. its not great. But it works reliably, and allows me to run the machine unattended. I might do a full video on my phase converter and power issues
Seems like a bit of a challenging part to make.
It seems like it could still be simplified though. Would machinable uniforce clamps be too tall for your fixture? I think they might be able to hold the 2nd op good enough. Those round machinable fixture clamps might be good enough too, but I haven't used them much.
If it's too hard to do the island, soft jaws method, maybe getting bars that are already milled to the right thickness, then window machining several out of a larger piece might be the way to go. You could leave tabs that can be sanded away later, or you could do all the holes first, put in the single screw, and that alone I think could possibly handle slotting around the outside in a few passes down. Or possibly do the holes, then mill two sides of two pieces next to each other creating a slot. This slot would be widen enough that a threaded hole in the fixture can then be used with a screw and a bar that can be placed across two pieces to clamp them down, allowing you to mill the other sides of the part.
But I don't know much about the heat treating your doing, so maybe using smaller stock makes that more difficult. I'm just starting to get into heat treating and I definitely can see how if you're able to hard mill first it means less hand finishing.
I have tried the uniform clamps for this, and I think I ended up not liking the way it clamped. Might have been using the wrong size uniforce though. While there are quite a few ways to fixture these a lot better, this is what I have found to work for the time being. The biggest issue with this fixture is I can only do one at a time. As far as the heat treating goes.. 17-4 hardened is actually not too difficult to machine. The benefit of it being hardened already is: Hitting tolerances are easy, and the surface finish ends up being nicer.
What would be awesome is if I had a 5th axis and I did the window machining trick. Than I could machine both sides in one setup haha. The trickiest thing with these lock-bar inserts is the fact that the counter bore and that countersink have to match up perfectly.
@@split141x I think you could totally window machine this part on your 4th axis. I've done similar things before. I'm not sure you'd even need to do a window, just machining most of it then machining down to a thin tab could work. It's already stiff material, then you're hardening it too. I don't even think you'd have to buy a dovetail fixture or anything. Keep the collet set up. I think you could probably mill a rectangle in a round bar, then put a set screw in the side. Use a collet stop to have a repeatable length.
Or even just give it a shot with some round bar and no extra fixture.
And yeah, for prototyping, just doing what you know works is the way to go.
I have actually tried cutting it out of round bar in the 4th. Its not as quick because you can't take as much of a cut, and the 4th is kinda stuck doing pocket clips. I'm kinda strapped for real estate. So I decided I'd rather be able to do all the parts in one go on fixtures, and leave the clips on the 4th. This way I can have the machine run for 15+ hrs unattended. I will say round bar is cheaper than rectangular bar, so you could justify doing it in the 4th just in material costs.
@@split141x Yeah, even if it's possible, coming up with a solution that allows you to make many at a time is probably better.
Good discussion. Love your videos fyi
You need to make the inside of the handles the outside...the inside looks sick.
Don't worry, I'm working on some cool outside design stuff. Just trying to nail down like a "base" model if you will.
unfortunate you have to ramp the spindle like that
Yea.. its not great. But it works reliably, and allows me to run the machine unattended. I might do a full video on my phase converter and power issues
How do you have it automatically show different components when switching between setups? Haven't seen how to do that before in Fusion.