A Sunday project with wood.

[John Conroy]

I'm no fan of woodworking but sometimes it's the best material for the job. I've been buying quite a bit of metric milling machine tooling lately so i picked a set of metric R8 collets. I needed a better way to store them as they wouldn't all fit in the drawer I had the the rest of my collets in. I made up 2 racks that hold 15 collets each and added them to the existing tool board on the back of one of my tool boxes. Now to clean up that damn sawdust!

 

[DPittman]

Nice. You're a craftsman with wood also John! Admirable. In my opinion I think wood was the right material for your project.

 

[gsg9.ca]

Nice job.

I'm past due for the same project myself.

 

[John Conroy]

Thanks guys

 

[PeterT]

I like how you angled the rack for collet access & visibility.

And your TIG welding on the joints is flawless! LOL

 

[John Conroy]

Thanks Peter, I'll probably do something similar when the 5C collet set arrives. Having a table saw makes getting the angles right pretty easy. I should have bought one years ago.

My TIG welding skills still need work before i would post any pictures. lol
But i have been practicing!

 

[John Conroy]

I did a little more wood working and made a board setup to hold the 4 lathe chucks I have. I machined some large washers and welded them to some tubing. With the washer/tubes bolted to the plywood the chucks can be closed onto the tubes so they are secure when rolling the tools box around. I mounted them low on the tool box to keep the center of gravity low and so I can still roll the tool box right up to my mill table. That way I can just slide my 10" super spacer and milling vise off the top of the tool box and onto the mill table with no lifting. Amazingly with all that weight the tool box still rolls well.





I also got a set of 5C collet blocks (KBC Tool) but they didn't come with a pin wrench for the collet nuts. I made up a wrench from a piece of 3/16" flat steel. I machined a steel ring to match the 2" OD of the nuts and cut a quarter of the ring off. I used a cut off piece of an old drill bit for the pin. I drilled the quarter circle piece for the pin and welded it from the back side, then welded that quarter circle assembly to the flat steel after I milled a pocket to fit. Probably could have bought a pin wrench for a few bucks but that wouldn't be any fun. As you can see my TIG skills still need work







The wrench fit in the box with the collet blocks.

 

[RobinHood]

Probably could have bought a pin wrench for a few bucks but that wouldn't be any fun.

Very well put. Seems i get caught up in that a lot myself.....

Great job on that project. More ideas for me....