Angle Plate Fixtures for Atlas Horizontal Milling Machine

vtcnc

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I've been putting off another project for more than year and finally committed to getting started. In order to machine the base casting for the project, I decided to make some angle plate fixtures to bolt down to my Atlas Horizontal Milling Machine.

The base casting needs to be flipped several times and spun due to the limited travel 6" x 9" on my Atlas. Here is the mockup renderings I made in Fusion 360 to plan my angle plate design:

Rendering.png

The plan is to fabricate the angle plate from welded 1018 steel, 3/8" plate. There is a provision for a key seat in the bottom that will mate up with the middle of the Atlas mill table. While the rendering shows the angle plate as one piece, the 12" wide angle plate will actually be two 6" wide angle plates. I'll do a proper drawing and update at a later date, but here is the basic print below:

Print Available in Downloads

Materials

2pc, 9"L x 6"W x 3/8", 1018 steel
1pc, 12"L x 4-1/2"W x 3/8", 1018 steel
4pc, 8-3/8"L x 1-1/2"W x 3/8", 1018 steel
4pc, 5/16-18 x 3/4"L, FHCS

Sawing

Nothing too exciting here, but I like showing off my Millers Falls power hacksaw. Some of the material needed to be cut to size. My cutting depth on the hacksaw isn't deep enough to handle.

View attachment IMG_6849.MOV
















The hacksaw support is pretty clapped out, this saw hasn't cut straight in many a moon. Another project someday! In the meantime, I cleaned up all the cut edges on my mill:

cleanup.JPG

Prepping the Base Plate

As stated previously, the project will yield two angle plates. In order to guarantee alignment after they are split, I drilled the base fixturing holes, milled a flat locating feature for welding the uprights and milled the key seats in the bottom.

Drilling.jpg
Drilling clearance fit clearance holes for 5/16-18 UNC FHCS. Letter drill Q.


Milling.jpg
Milling a shallow locating feature for welding the uprights. 3/8" wide cutter.
The pass on the right looks nice, the second pass on the left has poor surface finish.
Turns out I was stripping my lead nut in the table.
I replaced here in this post.


Base View Top.jpg
Countersunk the holes for the FHCS

Base View Bottom.jpg

Milled two key seats to locate the angle plates in the mill table T-slot. 3/8"W x 3" long.


Splitting the Base.png
The final split prior to welding.


Welding

I am a novice welder. This is the thickest material I have welded and it gave me some trouble at first. I use a small Harbor Freight FCAW, its the Titanium 125. Once I figured out the right hand speed I got the hang of it. I also made some dumb rookie mistakes, I.E. its ugly. But sometimes ugly works. It is all one piece now and it works.

Some photos. The Harbor Freight welding table is kind of a waste of money, in my opinion. You can see I clamped a big piece of aluminum jig plate to the top of the table so I had something rigid to work on and clamp my parts up on.

weld 1.jpg
Finally controlled my enthusiasm and made nice short welds.
My final puddle on each weld needs work.
Haven't quite figured out whatever that little final swizzle move is.



weld 2.jpg
The Harbor Freight table is uneven and flimsy. The 1" jig plate clamped to it is not.

Slotting

Final operation is to put the slots in the angle plate to fixture the casting. Laid out 5 hole positions per slot, 1/2" apart to create 2" long slots. Spotted and stepped up the drills until I got to 31/64". This leaves a little room for milling out the slots with a 1/2" roughing mill. One problem I ran across in the slotting operation was limited travel. I laid the angle plates down on their sides and indicated them square. Then the slotting went off without a hitch.

Step Drilling.jpg
Material waste removal prior to slotting. I need more than 1/3 hp in my drill press!


Slotting Top View.jpg
Slotting in the angle plates with a 1/2" roughing end mill.


Slotting Back View.jpg
Slotting operation from the back view of the angle plate.


Finished.jpg
A finished angle plate
.

Finished Back.jpg
Back view of all my embarassing, but finished and strong, welds.

Finished Front.jpg
The pair of finished plates installed and ready for the base casting of the gear hobber.

That's it! They work great and moved up a level of achievement in my quest for building a tool to build a tool so i can build more tools to build tools.

Couple lessons learned:

  • Need a bigger drill press. 1hp floor model with 5/8" chuck would be sweet.
  • Welding. Go slower. Shorter welds. Be patient.
  • Key seats didn't' really work out the way I wanted weld wise. I just couldn't get a strong weld underneath that key. So I use them loose for now.
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the photos and videos!
 
Bryan , after seeing when you first started this project (12-16 ) , it makes me feel a lot better about me not being the only one to let projects slip thru the years . :grin: If I could ever get some time off I think I have 100 or so from thru out the years ! :rolleyes:
 
Awesome project imho.. great to see an Atlas mill working. I have the exact same power hacksaw as you, I think mine has a bunch more wear tho.. LOL.

To "finish" your weld, push the stick into the puddle and make the smallest arc you can, build up the puddle depth then pull away quickly. Works for me.
 
Awesome project imho.. great to see an Atlas mill working. I have the exact same power hacksaw as you, I think mine has a bunch more wear tho.. LOL.

To "finish" your weld, push the stick into the puddle and make the smallest arc you can, build up the puddle depth then pull away quickly. Works for me.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I recently sold my Millers Falls Star Hacksaw. The wear was shaping up to be a project and I just don't have time. Have to pick my battles. Sold it for $150 a few months ago.

Regarding the finish weld, I'm using FCAW, not sure how that would work?
 
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Thanks for the vote of confidence. I recently sold my Millers Falls Star Hacksaw. The wear was shaping up to be a project and I just have time. Have to pick my battles. Sold it for $150 a few months ago.

Regarding the finish weld, I'm using FCAW, not sure how that would work?
Gotcha on the saw, I agree with choosing your battles. I'm not sure how long mine has run being so worn.. I've already added bushings to the top and that has helped a lot. but the eccentric/crank needs mucho help. LOL.. On the welding, it really doesn't matter if it's stick / tig / mig , at the end you need to run a smaller arc (get close to the puddle) and "fill" the puddle - takes practice, like all welding. Most important to me is I need to be comfortable, no crazy position or straining to see the weld area, I need a good arm position to maintain the hand/arm movement. It was easier when I was younger and did it weekly/daily.
 
In my extensive training in welding (15 minutes with the guy who sold me the buzzbox), he said when you get to the end, back up 1/2 inch or so and then break the arc. Seemed to work, sort of, hard really to tell with my work.
I'll have to try shortening the arc method.
 
@darkd0r ,

If you'd like to share some pictures of your welds, there are some people here that can give good constructive criticism.
Feel free to start a new thread in the getting help or welding areas if you like.

Welcome to the group!

-brino
 
Awesome to see you using the atlas mill! I just picked up one as a semi basket case. Looking forward to fabricating nice items like your angle plats!
 
@darkd0r ,

If you'd like to share some pictures of your welds, there are some people here that can give good constructive criticism.
Feel free to start a new thread in the getting help or welding areas if you like.

Welcome to the group!

-brino
Thank you, brino, and sorry I didn't get back to you sooner as I have been busy getting my 40 year old pickup ready for a road trip to acquire a new money pit. I don't want to clutter up this thread any more so will start a new one when I get organized (ha!).
 
Good morning, I'm new to this site but would like to suggest what I have done in the past regarding angle plates. I found that I was able to achieve better results attaching the plates by sloting the receiving plate and bolting the face plate and bracing together using counter sunk allen head hardware. Welding seems to always pull the work out of square and welding cold roll steel can present problems. Thanks, Charlie
 
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