Project #2, a Tilting Mini Pallet (Tooling Plate) With Alignment Pins.

[Andre]

If any of you out there watch Tom Lipton's (Oxtoolco) videos on youtube, you know he loves his mini pallet. It's a very versatile and handy thing to have, and having a shiny chunk of aluminum looks great in the toolbox!

Basically, a tooling plate is a plate milled flat, with tapped holes for small clamps. Works great in applications where your parts need to be held down instead of crushed in a vise. Mine has a twist, however. It has 1/4" reamed holes for aligning parts across the reference side (side always against the solid jaw) easier than indicating.....tap....indicating....tap....etc.. and also includes reamed holes in the side, in conjunction with a protractor to have the ability to tilt up to -30 degrees, to keep from having to tilt the mill head in most cases and saves a lot of time. This video should explain it.

[video=youtube;OJTK-wqZ5c0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJTK-wqZ5c0[/video]

Happy Machining!

 

[stevecmo]

Andre,

Thanks for posting this. Definitely a useful tool. We had a thread here a few months ago on a similar bit of tooling that you might be interested in:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=16854

Steve

 

[Andre]

Andre,

Thanks for posting this. Definitely a useful tool. We had a thread here a few months ago on a similar bit of tooling that you might be interested in:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=16854

Steve

Thanks for the link, Steve. Neat idea.

 

[Andre]

Just found another use for it, on the horizontal bandsaw!

 

[melsdad]

Neat trick using the plate on the saw like that!!

 

[Andre]

Neat trick using the plate on the saw like that!!

Thank you! It has come in very handy for lots of things. A pain to make the clamps and tap, but it was well worth it!