Making flat lapping plates 1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มี.ค. 2017
- In this video we start on three serrated cast iron lapping plates. We will use the classic Whitworth three plate method to generate true flat planes for our new lapping plates. These plates are cast iron bar purchased from McMaster Carr. We discuss several methods for cutting the serrations in the plates.
Wikipedia article on lapping. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapping
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Probably the only video on TH-cam showing the 3 surface method of making something flat and straight. Nice
been waiting for someone to put out a quality video on making flat surfaces w the 3 plate method. this is exactly what i was hoping for. cant wait for the rest. thanks Tom!!
"I proved to myself I can do better than that" what a great saying to live by! Thanks, think I'm going to pinch that for myself 😄
I came here to learn what a lapping plate is. I still don't know, but I enjoyed every second of this video
I'm sitting at work lapping some little tungsten parts, which takes forever, and remembered I had been meaning to watch this series. Thus, the first Meta Monday was born.
"Took me a while to turn down some bar stock for the nails." made me laugh. :)
Yeah, it also made me say something like "you friggen goof" when he said, "just kidding" after having me squint crossed-eyed at the nails to look for tool marks, LOL! Thankfully I was in between sips of coffee or it could have got ugly!
I immediately knew they are off-the-shelf galvanized nails.
My wife thought I laughed at her...took me 5 minutes to explain the whole thing. Thanks a lot Tom for getting me in trouble.
Only thing better than getting home early from work on a Monday is having a video from Tom waiting. Thanks Tom.
I'm a tool dealer specializing In sockets and automotive specialty tools so very nice to meet someone with a similar passion!
I looked so hard to find a good video of this method, I can't wait for part 2. Thanks!
What a darned good video, Tom. All your videos are great, but the metrological ones are super good. To quote AvE, you consistently drop informational nuggets of gold and don't even realize it. Frigging genius.
Utterly and totally impressed with your patient professionalism.Took me twenty minutes (when you drew the blue circle around the plate) to realize this was about NON-POWERED lapping.I was also horrified,and stunned, to see you use a tct blade on steel!!
All my life I have tried to avoid hitting ANY sort of metal with what I believed to be a wood-cutting blade.But hey, live and learn.Can not wait to get the time to watch "What happened next".Looking forward to seeing the rest of your offerings.Many,many thanks for sharing,
very good video, understood it for the first time, I'm happy with it! Thank you !
you usually learn more when you make a mistake and then get it right than getting it right on the first go, good job man
Hey Tom, the problem with the wood blades these days is the body has become super thin and will warp terribly when cutting metal from the heat build up. it's better to find carbide blades that are not "Thin Kerf". I've been using circular saws for years cutting aluminum and have noticed that thin kerf blades are warping more and more. Try a Diablo Metal Demon they are great and also have a 0° rake on the tooth. Cut through Steel, Iron like butter but aluminum can gum them up but dab some wax and no issues.
Did he ever say what blade he's got? If it's a 'rip' blade, it could have offset teeth and have a point instead of a flat contact area (at the perimeter of the blade). I imagine that this could cause the blade to push/wobble.
Enjoyed Tom. Nice trick on holding the plates in the Roll-In saw.
love your content. it's great to learn stuff here and go into work and show the old guys different or new ways of doing things. As a 2nd year millwright apprentice I have learned so much from you and for that, I THANK YOU. Keep you the hard work. The shop (if you can even call it that) you are in and the work you do inspires me to try my best and to get somewhere that does such out of this world work, as the insane place you get to call work. Cheers!
Thanks Again
Mike from Canada
Good for you Mike, Tom certainly has lots of great content, as do many of the other TH-cam content creators. It is a great opportunity for a young bloke like yourself to increase your knowledge, and ability to work out difficult problem jobs, which might stimy a more "run of the mill" tradesman.
Rob from Australia;-))
The fidelity at which the noises of the rule and the tape measure scraping over the top of the plates is impeccable ! Enough to shake a dental filling loose. I fear the day the youtube introduces smell-o-vision.
Thank you tom for instructing us on how to make lapping plates
That was a really good intro to lapping plates - thanks - looking forward to the next one!
Loved this video Tom! Thanks for the quality info.
I literally was researching this like a week ago. Thanks for the video.
Just watched the series and really appreciate the knowledge. Thank you!
Thank you for the upload. probably one of your best videos. I learned so much.
Thanks for this video. I read the theory some time ago, and always wanted to see someone actually try to do it !
Working with dead tree carcass and related tools confounds the poor guy.
I just watch a 28 min video about lapping and I have no idea what it is, but man is your voice enjoyable to listen too.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing. You have every mans dream workshop.
Really interesting video. Looking forward to the next one.
This is very interesting to me I have never seen this done. Thanks as always for Sharing.
Thanks for doing this. Looking forward to more.
Saturday morning and smiling.
thanks Tom.
Great video, this should be very helpful to everyone.
This is going to be a nice series Tom. Looking forward to the rest.
Lemmi get a insta fence here xD.. I like the on the fly problem solving, good thing you leave stuff like that in the video..
Hey Tom,
Very nicely done! looking forward to seeing part 2. Some flanges on the circular saw blade would probably help. It is probably going thru one of its vibration mode shapes during the cut.
ATB , Robin
Neat experiment with the circular saw cutting the cast iron. Thanks for seeing it to the end.
Wanton abuse of woodchucking tools... episode 2! Sweet trick for cutting those grooves Tom!
Currently giving this a go. I've got three 6" cast iron plates from McMaster.
They have a pretty rough finish out of the box. Running an indicator across the top of the A plate resting on a granite surface plate, I get a deviation of about .010 inches. (I know this isn't the best way to do this, but just to give me an idea of things). I do not have access to a lathe, so I can't face them off. I could use sandpaper to flatten things out a bit but wheres the fun in that. =)
I am also for the time being forgoing the cutting of any grooves as to my understanding it's not absolutely necessary and while I did purchase the test kit of Timesaver garnet along with the plates, I am opting to see what progress can be made without the use of it.
So far I have noticed the high spots becoming flatter and shinier but progress seems extremely slow which was more or less to be expected. I've lapped A on B for about an hour or so and have minimal wear around the edge of the plates. I also expect progress to gradually slow as the plates become smoother.
My goal is to see how far you can take the concept of "something from nothing" using this method. I'd imagine 200 years ago they didn't have the quality of tools we have now hence me wanting to cowboy this a bit before giving in.
I suspect at some point I'll flatten the plates a bit with some sandpaper and start using the garnet. I think it's a toss up between the wife complaining about the noise or me getting tired. =)
Been waiting for this one. Have become fairly interested in lapping recently, and there isn't that much information online from what I can find. Thanks for the great video Tom!
Edit: Wow! When you pulled out that circular saw, I thought it was a joke at first. That makes one hell of a noise! Hacksaw was my first thought as well, seems like you could make a fairly decent lap at home with little to no tools.
Yeeeees, cool :)
Just recently in the comments to a video from AvE it was suggested that he should try and show this technique, my thoughts were "If someone should do a video about that, it should be Tom Lipton" and now I am watching this. Can you read minds? This is amazing :D
I like how you get to the root of how it is done. That is what we need to be able to come up with good solutions. Kind of like knowing where the numbers on tonnage charts come from. When you go over these things like optical flats and then this video in laymen's terms, it gives us what we need to move forward. When you teach us the fundamentals, we have the tools to take it to the next level- like maybe making a 123 block in the next vid?
That circular saw cut.... feeds and speeds!!! hehe
Tom, love watching your vids, for some reason this one brings the analogy "Dog with a bone" to mind :-)
They make these things called horizontal milling machines that can do that really well, you should get one lol! After your first stop built lapping plate video I scrounged some cast iron and made one using my horizontal mill and a 1/16 slitting saw. Works slick but it's only surface ground so far.
Great as usual Sir Lipton!
Remind me never to lend you my circular saw.
Carbide teeth on a circular saw are not very different than a carbide cutting tool in a shaping machine, they cut metal, the issue I think is the heat generated. Shaping machine are also much slower but can take bigger cuts.
There are better designed reverse rake tooth blades for steel specifically @@davidlisle6084
The issue is the rpm, it's waaay too much rpm for a blade that size in ferrous material.
@@davidlisle6084 take a look at circular saw blades for wood, non-ferrous materials, and for metals like mild steels. Very different designs, for a variety of reasons, and if you look into it, talk to a guy whose job is to know what tooling to use when and why, like a Manufacturing or Process Engineering Manager (but one who worked his way up over years of actually working on the shop floor, AND has the technical knowledge), and he'll tell you that the carbide grades, how they're ground, even how they're braised in place, make them poor choices for cutting steels or cast irons (especially the cast iron). But, what the hell, it's not my money.
I hope anybody have tried on the table saw
A good way to start fire underneat it😂
At one point I was worried about you with that saw.... luckily it didn't get the better of you! The three plate, Whitworth, method is brilliant. On the copper ones, here in Canada we wouldn't use pennies, they're too expensive eh. Thanks for the Video Tom.
ok im hooked on this series Mr Lipton. more please.
A couple of thoughts about woodchuck tools. It's generally better to push against a single fence than to trap the tool between 2 fences - the edges of the circular saw base would need to be parallel for that. Also, don't assume the blade is parallel with either edge of the saw base. You need to confirm that, and adjust if needed. Finally, don't assume the edges of the saw base are straight either. I once bought a "good" brand name saw where the edges of the base were so curved that it was impossible to cut a straight line using a straight edge. I took it back to the big box store, told them why, and they were totally uninterested. They probably put it back in stock, so beware.
Michael Litzkow That is some good advice. It would seem the blade is not parallel with the base plate for sure.
about hardcore grooving method, you can set up 3 or 4 hacksaw blades together and cut wider gape at once
Funny thing about the nails is anybody who watches him enough believed he would do that. Wouldn't be out of the ordinary for oxtools. can't wait for part 2.
Can't believe I'm watching Tom Lipton using a circular saw on steel ...........in his mill vise.
cool project, thanks for the video ...
If I would try to cut with a band saw with out a guide, like you did the piece would have an edge that looked like waves of an ocean in a hurricane.....lol Awesome video Mr Tom, I really enjoy your style, and the content you put into your videos.
Kevin
i like this, it is kinda old school and very accessible
When facing cast iron I flip the tool holder over and run the spindle in reverse, lay a plate down on the ways to collect the chips.
Nice technique with the skillsaw. If you glue the square plate like you did first on it you can cut thoses on the table saw with some blade stiffner.
I just looked out in the shop, but I can't find my carbide tipped chainsaw chain darnit! :) I know it's carbide on the circsaw blade, but man!...My brothers used to make me sweep the whole friggin job site for hitting a teeny finish nail with their precious worm drive saw blades! Anyway....
Have fun, G.
I'm making a set of lapping plates inspired by Toms work and I've found that a 6" grinder and a cutoff wheel works great for cutting the crosshatching in the faces. Yea it isn't a precise depth of cut like you could get with a bandsaw or a circular saw but i didnt want those chips in my good skillsaw...
Tom a very wise friend showed me how the grooves don't need to be straight. Circular work just as well and are much easier to put it with your weapon of choice.
The grooves are only needed for non-charging compounds. I'm interested to see the next episode of how you're going to lap them flat without charging them. I believe they used to traditionally be scraped flat, which can also be done with a 3 plate method.
You could put a narrow kerf circ-saw blade in a table saw and use the fence to make ~precision cuts.
I've been wanting to try this. My initial thought for the checkering was either a tiny endmill, or attach it to an angle plate and use a slitting saw.
might be a bit (lot) slower, but it would do a nice job of it
I had to turn down some rod stock to make some nails. That was a good one!
Diamond angle grinder blades are amazing to cut cast iron with =)
Tomas Wilhelmsson I thought the same thing but he didn't mention it, I wonder if had to do with repeatable cuts, alignment and accurate depth.
true but you could make a jig for the angle grinder also =) just wanted to mention it if someone didnt know diamond blades cut throught cast iron like a hot knife throught butter =)
I have a 'chop saw' contraption for my angle grinder, sure this would work for this purpose.
Fred Genius pictures?
drive.google.com/open?id=0B01q53nWAW2-T3lDZ09HLTdHMTQ
drive.google.com/open?id=0B01q53nWAW2-SndOVXdHNTFKYVU
Takes me back to the when I was an apprentice & it was my job to anneal the rod stock every time we made a crate to ship something out. If I had a nickel for every nail I turned out of rod stock, Bill Gates would be washing my car. (just kidding, I laughed out loud at the "rod stock comment)
I like how you introduce some low tech alternatives
good video! id love to make some laps when i have some time.
fyi, as someone with a fair amount of "wood chuck tools" myself who sometimes uses them for metal work in a pinch, they sell metal cutting blades for most circular saw sizes, both for ferrous and nonferrous metals.
Most wood cutting blades really dont have the rake angles to hold up to metal work, and the teeth are too small without enough brazing surface, and as you experienced are also too thin usually. metal cutting blades have less agressive rake angles, more and thicker teeth, better quality carbide, longer and wider brazing surfaces, and much thicker and stiffer bodies, this is why they can cost several times more than their wood cutting counterparts. you can get close with some quality finishing blades, but the angles are still wrong.
i have several for my skillsaw 77 (you really need one of these instead of that dewalt cordless crap, you can usually find old ones at secondhand stores and pawn shops cheap but be carefull because almost guarnteed it was owned by a tradesman and abused) my 10" table saw and 12" chop saw. they come in verry handy, I even cut a 1/4" plate for the top of a small welding table with it. I have found some at secondhand stores in new condition selling for $5 because they didnt know how much they cost originally.
in a pinch you can also use blades ment for demo work (made to be able to cut through nails)
Great stuff
Being merely an observer I noted that as you cut through the plywood, when you got to the metal, chips started collecting on the top of the plywood, while the generated sawdust was "Gone with the Wind".
I wasn't quite through laughing about "sharpie mouth" and then you had to spring a few gems on us in this episode. I think machinists have a uniformly bizarre sense of humor. I've used carbide "woodchuck" blades in a slit saw arbor on aluminum for a deep reach resurface. Slow slow slow. Did OK. I found myself wincing during your cast iron grooving operation. Not only are you funny your pretty brave.
looks like the perfect job for a horizontal mill.
The high positive rake of thin kerf blades are likely causing the blade wobble on the wood blade. Most comercial buildings require metal studs blades made for that work may serve better. I need a bandsaw like that. nice work Tom
th-cam.com/video/rHmsQEAx16o/w-d-xo.html
Chassis scie est coincée en arrière 16:13, lame ne pas être fautive.
Thanks for sharing ;)
Looking good.
I think the skill saw rpm is too high maybe. Thanks for the videos. That saw is just awesome! (the grove cutter)
th-cam.com/video/rHmsQEAx16o/w-d-xo.html
Chassis scie est coincée en arrière 16:13, lame ne pas être fautive.
Very Cool Tom :)
Could you use a spiral groove instead of squares and use a real quick facing feed rate on the lathe?
i like ur thinking
Fernand Geene Van I think you have a very good point. It would be interesting to see how rapid the wear is with these plates and how often they would need re-lapping.
For symmetry's sake, make it 2 spirals . . . in opposite directions :p
georgewocosky 👍
Fibonacci curves (like on a sunflower, pineapple, or pinecone) so that the cells stay the same area.
For an example: bit(dot)ly(slash)fibonacci600
Darn YT's policy of no urls
If you used a small 4 1/2” circular saw blade it might reduce the blade vibration?
Cutting the grooves looks like an ideal job for a shaper.
Is it just me or does Tom's timely return to TH-cam after a two week break, coinciding with the spillway reopening, have a connection to something bigger?? HMMMM ??? Nice work Tom
Tom, if you get a chance (in the next video) can you discuss how to lap parallelism and squareness?
Like the out of the box thinking with the woodchuck tools.
"theyre not particularly fuzzy other than ur own need for symmetry...."-priceless!
ngl I loved the saw tangent
Can a V groove mill drill or V groove engraving cutter (Melin) be used to create the checkerboard pattern? I have a small V groove cutter that I use when making vise jaw V grooves, solid carbide. Nice plates. Do they have to be cast iron?
When i look this stuff up i always end up fown the same rabbit hole, between folks making lapping stones/honing a surface plate, and scraping with a surface plate larger than the work piece itself.
My question is how do you flatten and level a workpiece that is far too large to be placed on a surface plate??
I can't find anything specific on that anywhere
www.google.com/search?q=scraping+a+machine+bed&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS812US812&oq=scraping+a+machine+bed&aqs=chrome..69i57.11785j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_d_9IX8ejMcO3tQa1q5ugAQ28
I am only a novice and find your films excellent and I am learning so much, after being 35 years a pharmacologist engineering is great relaxation for me!
But please answer me this one question: why not cut those slots with a milling cutter in a mill?
Thankyou. Dave. UK
I agree. As a machinist I would tilt the head over to 45 and mill the grooves with an end mill. Carbide would be best but HSS would also work. Next question, how would you use those plates to lap other parts with no grooves flat? That’s really what I expected to see here. Thanks.
Good to know!
I know you are profesional, but I got goose bumps seeing you holding the dewalt saw on the top cover. Man. My friend lost 2 fingers and some meat, when some metal got into the teeth, propeling it circumwise through his hand. brrr.....
I bet a table saw set shallow would groove those nicely.
Hi Tom, I'm making a set of these laps (the cast iron ones), pretty much following along but modifying machining methods to suit my limited shop. I'd love to see you actually lap some things with them. I'm not finding clear information out there on whether I should be using these for slurry only (rougher lapping I suppose) or would look to charge them, clean them (leaving embedded grit) and then use them with something like WD-40. Also, I'm not sure what grit would be best. The Timesaver is good for leveling the plates it looks like, but not for actual lapping because the cast iron is softer than hardened steel and would wear more than the part with the rolling abrasive. I'm interested mostly in flatness (e.g. bottom of surface gage) rather than a lustrous finish (although maybe that would do better sliding across the surface plate).
Hey Tom, is it possible to do this 3 plate method with straight rectangular granite plates?
good video tom . your experiments with the circular saw made me think about the possibility of using a arbor and a smaller diameter saw blade on the milling machine. the blade speed could be set closer to the recommended sfm and using some stabilizer washers wobble could be eliminated. what do you think .
My thoughts were why not use a slitting saw!
Well, I have been using lapping compound to mirror polish my Custom Swaging Dies, but according to what read in the link that you have in the description.. perhaps I have been doing it wrong..First I use some step drilling first, then use my Custom Ogive Mill. then sand with about 220, then 380, then I use pieces of hard rubber impregnated with firs 600 then 1200 lapping compound... I acknowledge that I may be doing it really wrong.. but Honestly don't have any one to give me any kind of guidance... If you have any type of advice I will appreciate it....
Very nice
I assume the closer to 90deg the ledge that is formed by the groove the more aggressive the lap? If for example you ball milled radiused slots at less than the radius the obtuse angle left would not cut as much?
bcbloc02 I'm not sure if it matters, I have a bought lapping plate with the grooves cast into it and they are radius grooves I assume it is to allow removing the pattern before casting, and it works fine since the cutting is done by the abrasive imbedded in the flat surface. I guess too shallow a groove may cause clogging though.
bcbloc02 I'm not sure if it matters, I have a bought lapping plate with the grooves cast into it and they are radius grooves I assume it is to allow removing the pattern before casting, and it works fine since the cutting is done by the abrasive imbedded in the flat surface. I guess too shallow a groove may cause clogging though.
Don't the grooves in the plates also increase the contact pressure locally?
The Workshop - Technically, yes. Though at a level that's essentially insignificant - think of the Void ratio to surface ratio. The slots are so narrow, while the plateaus are rather large by comparison, so the difference will be negligible. it's really done as he explained in the video to allow place for cutting/lubricant material and cut material to be aside from in between the plates that are lapping.
Hi Tom, i really enjoy your VIDS, quick question, what make/model is that band saw you use to cut the plate grooves, don't think I have seen one like it before.
So is having square groves critical to the flow of the abrasive, and dose the width of the grove have a impact on performance? Also would this also yield a relatively accurate surface plate for simple home reference?
Could you cut the grooves with the corner of an end mill tipped 45 degrees? Would the angled side affect how the lapping slurry flows in or out of the groove?