Which clamping set to buy ...

[arvidj]

I would like to take advantage of the current Enco sale and buy several clamping sets for my new mill. They have sets that have 1/2 inch ... .500, 14mm ... .512 and 9/16 inch ... .5625 T-nuts available.

I measured the slots on my new mill and they appear to be between .542 and .556 wide. Being an imported mill the 14mm size makes sense.

I took the obvious choice ... the 14mm set ... off the table as it has metric studs and I live in a non-metric country.

The T-nuts in 1/2 inch set are .875 wide at that base but only comes with 3/8 inch studs.

The T-nuts in 9/16 inch set are also .875 wide at the base but comes with either 3/8 or 1/2 inch studs.

My instinct is to go with the 1/2 inch studs but obviously the nuts are too large for the slots.

So the three questions are:

( a ) If I go with the 1/2 inch set what are the detrimental issues related to having a nut that is considerably narrower than the slot?

( b ) If I go with the 1/2 inch set what are the pros and cons of the 3/8 inch studs vs. the 1/2 half in studs?

( c ) If I go with the 9/16 inch set what is the possibility of being able to easily mill the T-nuts to fit the slightly smaller slot? This might be an interesting "first chips" exercise with the mill.

Any thoughts or advice?

Thanks,
Arvid

[DaveH]

Arvid,

Some of my thoughts, I live in a metric country so I buy metric in my case I bought a 10mm thread set. The T nuts I made, I think the ones that came with the set were too small. My mill is a RF30

So if I lived in an 'inch' country I would buy an inch set - just makes life easier sometimes

The worst thing for the T slots is to have poorly fitted T nuts and using too much force to tighten them - results in damage and sometimes breaking part of the T slots.

That's my bit


DaveH

[stevec]

ditto DaveH

[EdK]

Arvid,

If you're talking about import clamping sets than you should be able to mill the T-nuts without too much problems. I had to mill some T-nuts for my angle table and they milled reasonably well without too much problem so I think if you have a decent end mill you should be able to mill the T-nuts without a problem.

Ed

[arvidj]

Dave, Steve and Ed,

Thanks for the advice.

I went with the 9/16 and 3/8 inch studs.