(274,’2007-02-20 17:58:37′,’david’,’2007-02-20 18:06:47′,’david’,’Kurt D675 AngLock Vise Arrived!’,”,’We started machining small parts. As we moved onto larger machines and workpieces for making things for the small mini-machines making things for those machines (say that 10 times ), we needed to become more efficient in some operations. We’ve always been big fans of workholding techniques. Having a large vise is just part of that fascination.

When we moved onto the ever-popular round-column mill/drill with a table that rivals that of full-sized knee/turret mills (9″x32″ table to be exact), we were in need of a larger vise. The choice was simple – a 6″ wide vise that you commonly find in many machine shops. Instead of buying an import this time, we wanted to buy real American cast iron. The Kurt D675 was the obvious choice.

After checking out ENCO and few other catalogs, we found a good deal via eBay. Even with shipping charges, we were able to save some money.

A week later, the box arrived:

Another picture of the box (we promise to show something a bit more substantial in a few seconds):

We opened up the box to find the warranty card, a bag containing two o-rings, and the 80 lb. vise.

We then lug the vise out and get a glimpse of the massiveness of the vise:

Flipping the vise over, we see a nice casting with a very prominent “USA” ground in:

The size placard/nameplate and the “Kurt blue” says it all:

They also include what they call a “chip guard”. It’s merely a thin guage sheet steel that slides in between the channel to cover the innards of the vise from chips.

Just for scale, we’ve chucked in the X2 mini-mill belt drive conversion plate lengthwise in the vise:

And the spindle/head of the mini-mill is also placed in there. This is one very hefty piece of American cast iron, indeed!

We’ll post more pictures with this vise mounted in its new home and provide some tips and tricks in workholding at a later time.

In the meantime, you can read more about why we chose the D675 over the D688 and D810 from Kurt as well the Parlec PSW-6900 6″ vise.

Stay tuned…

‘,’

We started machining small parts. As we moved onto larger machines and workpieces for making things for the small mini-machines making things for those machines (say that 10 times ), we needed to become more efficient in some operations. We’ve always been big fans of workholding techniques. Having a large vise is just part of that fascination.

When we moved onto the ever-popular round-column mill/drill with a table that rivals that of full-sized knee/turret mills (9“x32” table to be exact), we were in need of a larger vise. The choice was simple – a 6” wide vise that you commonly find in many machine shops. Instead of buying an import this time, we wanted to buy real American cast iron. The Kurt D675 was the obvious choice.

After checking out ENCO and few other catalogs, we found a good deal via eBay. Even with shipping charges, we were able to save some money.

A week later, the box arrived:

Another picture of the box (we promise to show something a bit more substantial in a few seconds):

We opened up the box to find the warranty card, a bag containing two o-rings, and the 80 lb. vise.

We then lug the vise out and get a glimpse of the massiveness of the vise:

Flipping the vise over, we see a nice casting with a very prominent “USA” ground in:

The size placard/nameplate and the “Kurt blue” says it all:

They also include what they call a “chip guard”. It’s merely a thin guage sheet steel that slides in between the channel to cover the innards of the vise from chips.

Just for scale, we’ve chucked in the X2 mini-mill belt drive conversion plate lengthwise in the vise:

And the spindle/head of the mini-mill is also placed in there. This is one very hefty piece of American cast iron, indeed!

We’ll post more pictures with this vise mounted in its new home and provide some tips and tricks in workholding at a later time.

In the meantime, you can read more about why we chose the D675 over the D688 and D810 from Kurt as well the Parlec PSW-6900 6” vise.

Stay tuned…

‘,’We started machining small parts. As we moved onto larger machines and workpieces for making things for the small mini-machines making things for those machines (say that 10 times ), we needed to become more efficient in some operations. We’ve always been big fans of workholding techniques. Having a large vise is just part of that fascination.

When we moved onto the ever-popular round-column mill/drill with a table that rivals that of full-sized knee/turret mills (9″x32″ table to be exact), we were in need of a larger vise. The choice was simple – a 6″ wide vise that you commonly find in many machine shops. Instead of buying an import this time, we wanted to buy real American cast iron. The Kurt D675 was the obvious choice.

After checking out ENCO and few other catalogs, we found a good deal via eBay. Even with shipping charges, we were able to save some money.

A week later, the box arrived:

‘,’

We started machining small parts. As we moved onto larger machines and workpieces for making things for the small mini-machines making things for those machines (say that 10 times ), we needed to become more efficient in some operations. We’ve always been big fans of workholding techniques. Having a large vise is just part of that fascination.

When we moved onto the ever-popular round-column mill/drill with a table that rivals that of full-sized knee/turret mills (9“x32” table to be exact), we were in need of a larger vise. The choice was simple – a 6” wide vise that you commonly find in many machine shops. Instead of buying an import this time, we wanted to buy real American cast iron. The Kurt D675 was the obvious choice.

After checking out ENCO and few other catalogs, we found a good deal via eBay. Even with shipping charges, we were able to save some money.

A week later, the box arrived:

‘,”,”,”,1,’Comment’,0,4,1,1,’article’,”,”,’kurt-d675-anglock-vise-arrived’,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,’f05e3cb937f8cbc8c4c6f62e8186a370′,’2007-02-20′);

(273,’2007-02-19 20:21:20′,’david’,’2007-02-19 20:21:20′,”,’Prototype Plastic Injection Molding Machine In Development’,”,’We’ve taken quite a bit of time with this one, but finally posted an updated page on its development. This will be a benchtop model that can reliably produce parts of size to be determined (? oz. shot) either driven pneumatically with a programmable logic controller (PLC), manually via lever operation, or electric drive.

Click here to visit the page.‘,’

We’ve taken quite a bit of time with this one, but finally posted an updated page on its development. This will be a benchtop model that can reliably produce parts of size to be determined (? oz. shot) either driven pneumatically with a programmable logic controller (PLC), manually via lever operation, or electric drive.

Click here to visit the page.

‘,’We’ve taken quite a bit of time with this one, but finally posted an updated page on its development. This will be a benchtop model that can reliably produce parts of size to be determined (? oz. shot) either driven pneumatically with a programmable logic controller (PLC), manually via lever operation, or electric drive.

Click here to visit the page.‘,’

We’ve taken quite a bit of time with this one, but finally posted an updated page on its development. This will be a benchtop model that can reliably produce parts of size to be determined (? oz. shot) either driven pneumatically with a programmable logic controller (PLC), manually via lever operation, or electric drive.

Click here to visit the page.

‘,”,”,”,1,’Comment’,0,4,1,1,’article’,”,”,’prototype-plastic-injection-molding-machine-in-development’,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,’19c7eec2a81a9b11bcf63480a8515b1b’,’2007-02-19′);

(272,’2007-02-11 22:28:41′,’david’,’2007-02-11 22:33:50′,’david’,’Mini-Mill Belt Drive Conversion Prototype Version 2′,”,’We finally completed version 2 of the working prototype of the belt drive for the mini-mill. Version 1 worked fine but was clearly just a mock-up. This version closely resembles what will be offered once we clean up a few more details.

This is by far the simplest implementation of the belt drive conversions for the mini mill. While it doesn’t offer step pulleys, we think that the variable speed drive/motor combination works just fine for revving up to 3,000+ RPM with this setup. No belts to change, no pulleys to adjust. All that’s needed is the belt drive unit, belt, timing pulleys and you’re off and running.

We started with a chunk of billet aluminum and started hogging away at it with the RF-31 mill/drill. There were two time-consuming (far less than with the mini-mill, however) tasks: 1. boring the hole and 2. removing a mass of material. There were also issues found with the round-column mill/drills. When switching between shorter length tooling (end mills, etc. ) and longer length tooling (boring heads, drill chucks, etc.) you have to re-adjust and zero the spindle since the quill only extends 5″ or so and the round column does not keep X-Y positioning. What a pain! Even with the ER-32 collet system, the boring bar still needed to be chucked and therefore required a re-zeroing.

Notice that the bored holes aren’t bored through. This was to save time since the other side needed to be machined away to past that depth.

We made lots of chips

After some time hogging away, we ended up with the prototype. It’s one piece. No spacers, just one single unit. You already saw the top view. Here’s the side (profile) view:

Notice the step.

Now, the underside of the unit:

Even with the vibration of the motor spreading to the table of the round column mill/drill, it still makes for quite the hogging machine for rapid machined prototypes (minus the X/Y position-losing problem..)

And, after all that time, here’s the unit mounted to the motor and head:

The chamfer is supposed to match the head, but the chamfer bit we had was too small and setting up the part at 45 degrees would take too long for this prototype.

Nice and simple. And it works! Plans? Kits? Coming soon..’,’

We finally completed version 2 of the working prototype of the belt drive for the mini-mill. Version 1 worked fine but was clearly just a mock-up. This version closely resembles what will be offered once we clean up a few more details.

This is by far the simplest implementation of the belt drive conversions for the mini mill. While it doesn’t offer step pulleys, we think that the variable speed drive/motor combination works just fine for revving up to 3,000+ RPM with this setup. No belts to change, no pulleys to adjust. All that’s needed is the belt drive unit, belt, timing pulleys and you’re off and running.

We started with a chunk of billet aluminum and started hogging away at it with the RF-31 mill/drill. There were two time-consuming (far less than with the mini-mill, however) tasks: 1. boring the hole and 2. removing a mass of material. There were also issues found with the round-column mill/drills. When switching between shorter length tooling (end mills, etc. ) and longer length tooling (boring heads, drill chucks, etc.) you have to re-adjust and zero the spindle since the quill only extends 5” or so and the round column does not keep X-Y positioning. What a pain! Even with the ER-32 collet system, the boring bar still needed to be chucked and therefore required a re-zeroing.

Notice that the bored holes aren’t bored through. This was to save time since the other side needed to be machined away to past that depth.

We made lots of chips

After some time hogging away, we ended up with the prototype. It’s one piece. No spacers, just one single unit. You already saw the top view. Here’s the side (profile) view:

Notice the step.

Now, the underside of the unit:

Even with the vibration of the motor spreading to the table of the round column mill/drill, it still makes for quite the hogging machine for rapid machined prototypes (minus the X/Y position-losing problem..)

And, after all that time, here’s the unit mounted to the motor and head:

The chamfer is supposed to match the head, but the chamfer bit we had was too small and setting up the part at 45 degrees would take too long for this prototype.

Nice and simple. And it works! Plans? Kits? Coming soon..

‘,’We finally completed version 2 of the working prototype of the belt drive for the mini-mill. Version 1 worked fine was clearly just a mock-up. This version closely resembles what will be offered once we clean up a few more details.

This is by far the simplest implementation of the belt drive conversion for the mini mill. While it doesn’t offer step pulleys, we think that the variable speed drive/motor combination works just fine for revving up to 3,000+ RPM with this setup. No belts to change, no pulleys to adjust. All that’s needed is the belt drive unit, belt, timing pulleys and you’re off and running.

‘,’

We finally completed version 2 of the working prototype of the belt drive for the mini-mill. Version 1 worked fine was clearly just a mock-up. This version closely resembles what will be offered once we clean up a few more details.

This is by far the simplest implementation of the belt drive conversion for the mini mill. While it doesn’t offer step pulleys, we think that the variable speed drive/motor combination works just fine for revving up to 3,000+ RPM with this setup. No belts to change, no pulleys to adjust. All that’s needed is the belt drive unit, belt, timing pulleys and you’re off and running.

‘,”,’Sieg-X2-Mini-Mill’,”,1,’Comment’,0,4,1,1,’article’,”,”,’mini-mill-belt-drive-conversion-prototype-version-2′,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,”,’cd67232e42cee10b38691adb4dc170c8′,’2007-02-11′);