Puddidium235

Cheapskate · January 2

Site's still up? whoah!

-Side ports... That was... snug. I set up this bit to cut 1/2" deep, while making sure there was clearance for the collet. When I started the process, The Z ran up the 1/4" clearance gap I normally work with, and crashed into the top of the frame. Oops, forgot about that one. :lol: There was a lot of tinkering to get everything to fit.

-I got my ports cut, though. Next I sanded.

-I didn't too fancy. I roughed out with 150 and 240 grit, then went straight to the powdered cleaner buff.

-Until I finish up, I'm leaving the masking on. For now, have a nice pic of my ceiling.

-I milled out this chunk of 3/4" and 1/2" to make a switch marble housing. There was a tense moment when I misplaced my ballsack. :terror:

-Eventually, this will be backed with this pearl stuff, and a tiny switch placed behind.

-Oh, right. I teased I was going to get after this big plastic. I sliced off a 4 inch slab. I wish The new mill was as easy to level as the tile saw.

-Say hi to the new "air compressor." :lol: It's quiet, low power consumption, and an effective calf workout. This quarantine hasn't helped my weight any.

-This is the start of a 3/4" deep pocket. The total time was around 3 1/2 hours. I could have made a more efficient operation, but this is such a huge chunk. I'd hate to screw it up.

-This is where I'm currently at, and where I'll likely be for a week. I was impressed enough with the finish of the 1/4" ball bit, that I decided to get a square end to finish up the outside. I didn't want to use the 1" depth of cut bit on this and potentially muck up the part where the shank would touch.
-If any of that makes sense.
TL;DR - I bought a long bit to finish.
-Well, as long as I could get.

Mosquito · January 4

from the pictures that cut quality does look pretty good.

For the res I made for my A1 build, I ended up getting a 4" long 1-1/2" DOC bit, and BOY is that thing weird/scary to run with that much sticking out of the router lol

Cheapskate · January 6

I bet that was 'spensive too. I can run that kind of stuff in the Taig. It's really solid. The spindle is even set up to allow 3/8" shanks to pass through the top of the assembly. You could potentially drop a bit into the collet to cut a really deep pocket. You'd need to loosen the bit and re-zero until finished. That doesn't sound very fun, though.

Mosquito · January 9

I actually had to move the router up in the mount almost as far as I could. I found out that I couldn't move it ALL the way to the top, as the v-wheels would come off the rail at the very end, when I was trying to do the full depth cut (outside contour) and allow it to shift by about 1/8" and lose rigidity... that was fun lol

Cheapskate · January 10

:lol: At my age, losing rigidity is a constant fear.

...I had to go there. Anyway, after all that bragging about this setup, I got a pretty bad surface:

I got the new bit.

-I used the down time to rearrange all the lights and hoses so the work could be seen better. I promptly snapped off the back hose. :lol:

-This bit has 1 1/8" cutting length, but the fluting is continued further. It was exactly what I needed for this deep cut. 7 inches a minute, .032 inch depth of cut, .27" cut so two passes each cut = 4 hours+. ow.

-Here's where I'm stumped: The back and left side edges are like glass near the top.

-Better pic. The front and right side are grooved a bit. I'm thinking the mill is leaning just a bit to that direction? It's not enough to see using a square, but when I fly cut a high spot on the top, I noticed the cutter leaning that way too.

-Here's the one that's really confusing me. The front left corner was getting gouged consistently in a staggered pattern. I was cleaning the chips. It shouldn't be doing that on a .02" shave anyway.

-Another angle. Anyone?

-Anyway. Here's the un-drilled, super rough, half-finished CHONK. I've already started sanding.
It was found in a heap at a recycling center ages ago. Of course it needs sanded. :D I even used it as a table at one point.

Mosquito · January 11

yeah, my guess would be that it's leaning too (that is to say the bottom of the endmill is going away from the direction of the stair stepped sides). I had similar struggles with mine too. two or three sides looked great, because it was constantly re-cutting the surface, but then the other side was stair stepped

Cheapskate · January 12

Pretty much. The fact that it's something like, .001" is the real pain. I'll never get re leveled without an indicator. I can still sand it out.

Mosquito · January 13

Yeah, I work around it with full depth finishing passes lol

Cheapskate · January 16

Pretty much what I said on Bit.

Cheapskate · January 19

I mean, I can't imagine what would make my mill lean all of a sudden...

- :terror: Oh... Right.

-I made a thing.

-I guess the edges were moot, because I sanded everything even. I figured the top would need work, so I added 1/32" to it in the model. Sure enough, that was the side that had the weird gouges in the cut. Here's a teaser with the switch assembly.

-I guess I hadn't sanded the sides in the earlier pic yet. Here you can see that I drilled the holes the rest of the way, and tapped stuff.

-Next up: This jig was so I could mill the ports connecting the two manifolds.

-Done. Now I had to drill the rest of those mounting holes and tap them.

-So, more squirrely tool setup.

-There was some equal squirrel levels for the tapping. Who is the idiot that designs these things?!? :lol:

-I used the base plate to find the other two holes. I filled in the holes with fine-point marker here. Earlier design tweaks in cad moved the holes closer together because the material was much thinner.

-And nailed it. -sort of... Viva loose tolerances!