The Chopper Compendium

Man...that's lookin good.Here's hopin you're shooting Holes in Shit real soon.

Jeff L wrote:Man...that's lookin good.Here's hopin you're shooting Holes in Shit real soon.

What he said...

Haha, Thanks guys!

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So I've finally had a chance to do some work on this again. I got the cutting from the top side done including a tricky undercut that required a severely altered cutter. All went well. At the moment it's standing up cutting a deep undercut from the looking down the barrel position. If I don't screw it up ( or even if I do) I'll post a couple pics tomorrow.

nice

Interesting workholding. I've got some pcs coming up that I may need to do similar. I like this thread.

rudog wrote:Interesting workholding. I've got some pcs coming up that I may need to do similar. I like this thread.

On the standing up pic I clamped it against an angle plate and used guage blocks to space the 1x2x3 blocks out to match the piece. If I was ever to do another one (and I'm not) I'd make up better fixtures for holding.

Thanks Curt!

Couple pics. There's a funky undercut deep in the magazine slot for the trigger bow. Doesn't really show up in the pics.

Planning to start on this end today. It'll take several set ups and edm work. I'll keep ya'll posted as I go.

It is a sweet treet to see this progress. My father said in job shoping he could always underbid since everyone else included the price of fixturing. He developed a style of workholding using modular clamping. Oddly enough, even when he started doing volume, he would still setup modular workholding. When I got my cnc's, I was in 7th heaven with fixtures for the volume cast parts, but I still built them so I could tear down and repurpose.

Keep it coming!!!

rudog wrote:It is a sweet treet to see this progress. My father said in job shoping he could always underbid since everyone else included the price of fixturing. He developed a style of workholding using modular clamping. Oddly enough, even when he started doing volume, he would still setup modular workholding. When I got my cnc's, I was in 7th heaven with fixtures for the volume cast parts, but I still built them so I could tear down and repurpose.

Keep it coming!!!

I'm always fascinated to see what other guys come up with. Sometimes I'm pretty clever, usually I just come up with something that'll work and keep everything held square. I have been using gauge pins thru holes in the part for indicating it into location. That method seems to be working pretty good for keeping everything in proper location. The tolerances on this are pretty tight. I'm not past the point of totally f'ing it up, but so far so good.

I admire the work you're putting into this. Holding it is one thing...squareing it, verifying, resetting your datum and checking again so you don't scrap all work to date is a chore that requires patience and "skill".

My father had been building an alum compression arm since the 60's. He used 2 plates to sandwich the part for clamp screws. All manual mills/drills. The fixture was so screwed up that I would have to shake the whole thing to remove the part. It was pure luck to get the part out. Overall machineing was 5 parts/day.

That was the 2nd part I fixtured for my mill. With a 4th axis rotab and a homemade tombstone, I could machine 3 sides then rotate 90*. I made 4 small pallets with a quage pin to locate one end, set screw fence on the other, and 3 small clamps to hold it. Part to part was 6 min.

The job I got now is real tricky since there are no flat edges to clamp onto. I may need to redisign for manufacturing just to hold and indicate it in. I'm designing some storage floorboards that will need to be patented to avoid suite from the other guys with a patent. I'm kinda hyped. The timing of your progress is perfect to amp me up for this.

rudog wrote:I admire the work you're putting into this. Holding it is one thing...squareing it, verifying, resetting your datum and checking again so you don't scrap all work to date is a chore that requires patience and "skill".

My father had been building an alum compression arm since the 60's. He used 2 plates to sandwich the part for clamp screws. All manual mills/drills. The fixture was so screwed up that I would have to shake the whole thing to remove the part. It was pure luck to get the part out. Overall machineing was 5 parts/day.

That was the 2nd part I fixtured for my mill. With a 4th axis rotab and a homemade tombstone, I could machine 3 sides then rotate 90*. I made 4 small pallets with a quage pin to locate one end, set screw fence on the other, and 3 small clamps to hold it. Part to part was 6 min.

The job I got now is real tricky since there are no flat edges to clamp onto. I may need to redisign for manufacturing just to hold and indicate it in. I'm designing some storage floorboards that will need to be patented to avoid suite from the other guys with a patent. I'm kinda hyped. The timing of your progress is perfect to amp me up for this.

That's awesome.

Great thread, I'm enjoying seeing how you clamp and fixture. Comments about using pins for indexing are good to hear,
gives me some insight about how the process goes.

Thanks...