[PROJECT] Filing machine build

[Vinny]

Oh boy! Free shipping for the hardware! That shipping's almost $60. I wouldn't deal with them either.

[Mayhem]

Surely one could be made from bar stock, bail twine and small fury animals...

[chucketn]

I'm planning to travel from Tennessee to New York for the holiday season. I might just make a side trip to Pine Grove Mills, PA, and pick up a kit. That is unless someone comes up with a "bar stock, bail twine and small fury animals..." design they're willing to share...

Chuck

[dallen]

there was someone on here that did make a die filer, EDK took his notes and made drawings for it, unless my brain is playing tricks with me again.

[Highpower]

(11-16-2015, 07:11 PM)rleete Wrote: If there was a miniature version, say 1/2 scale I'd be all over it.  But I have no more room for something quite that large.  Besides, my lathe is too small.  

This one stands 8 inches tall from the bottom of the base casting to the top of the table.

The build that Bill Gruby posted here stands about 24 inches tall IIRC.

I like the look and size of Andy's castings. I just don't want to spend $60 on postage only to have the USPS destroy the contents after waiting a month and a half for them to get it here....

[Highpower]

(11-17-2015, 07:23 AM)chucketn Wrote: I'm planning to travel from Tennessee to New York for the holiday season. I might just make a side trip to Pine Grove Mills, PA, and pick up a kit. That is unless someone comes up with a "bar stock, bail twine and small fury animals..." design they're willing to share...

Chuck

I see now on the web page that Andy DOES offer shipping via Fedex as well. I have no idea what he charges for that other than the extra $4.00 he also charges for driving your package to the Fedex drop-off point....

[marfaguy]

Sorry about the delay in progress. I can only really work on this project during the weekends. I hope to get some more work done this week as I have most of Thanksgiving week off. 

 After getting the bottom flattened out I mounted the body on my Mill. I lightly clamped down the piece with 3 toe clamps. I then put a wiggler/pointer in the mill spindle and indicated on the parting line running down the length. There isn’t much else to use a reference other than the parting line in the casting. I also stuck a length of 1/2’ pipe through the horizontal bore to help orient it with the mill table. After I was happy with it I tightened up on the clamps. I then set the X axis t o zero over the parting line track. Since this is cast iron I covered the mill table with 2 towels to help keep iron grit controlled. 
   

Once I was happy with the set up I started removing the lug at the top which had been used in the lathe chuck to flatten the bottom. 
   

The height of the body is called out in the plans. After mowing the top off to just a few thousands left to go I took off the last bit with a fly cutter ( forgot to get a picture, sorry).  With that done it was time to start thinking about establishing some additional references. The plans specify the distance from the horizontal shaft bore (far right side in the pictures) to the center line of the vertical shaft. The face of the horizontal bore had been sawn off, or was a very rough grind so I decided to start there. I vertical milled the face and then measured back to just milled surface horizontal surface. By eyeball it looked pretty centered. So I went back, found the vertical face with an edge finder and dialed in the distance to the bore. I now had 0 in X and 0 in Y established for the vertical shaft bore. Spot drilled the center and drilled/tapped the bolt circle. 
   

Next up was the 2 bosses running perpendicular to the parting line. These are for bolting on the arms which hold up the table. The plans call out the distance from the vertical bore to the vertical face of each boss. as you would expect they are equidistant from the center line. I loaded a 5/8” end mill, computed how much to take off and cleaned up the bosses. 
   

Lastly I milled off a little flat area on top of just finished arm bosses, at the top of the horizontal shaft bore and on it’s opposite end. I then marked the flats with a black sharpie and then used a spot drill to mark 0 axis in X and Y witness marks. These will come in handy later. 
   

[marfaguy]

Annnnd we're back...
I then decided to make the brass cap called for in the plans. This is pretty standard stuff so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this other than to say I wanted to drill/ream the brass cap at the same time I was going to bore for the vertical shaft. 

   

   

   

I mounted the body back into the lathe but with the base in the 4 jaw chuck. I’ve got a nice .5” piece of drill rod center drilled on one end and brought to a 60 degree point on the other that I use to center point in a 4 jaw chuck. I’m sure everybody knows how to do this but if you have any questions see this video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxs3POSVn9I

   

After aligning the the center bore in the lathe I put the brass cap back in place, centered drilled, stepped drilled and then reamed the brass cap to .501”. 
   

   

The vertical bore for the file rod goes all the way through the body so it’s a pretty deep hole. Well at least for me it is. 
   

After drilling it all the way through with a 1/2’ drill, which just barley made it, I had to use a 3/8” boring bar (which is a bit too springy for this) to open up the bore enough to use my 5/8” boring bar to finish it up.

   

Next up… Getting ready to bore the horizontal drive shaft. This is where it get's interesting. 

[Dr Stan]

Will this be a variable speed, or a set number of strokes per minute? I have an old scroll saw that would be an excellent starting point for a die filer, but I do not have a clue as to what strokes/minute to use.

[Roadracer_Al]

It occurs to me that this could be fabricated as a welded structure using tubing, flat stock and round bar.