Spindle wrench for my mill

[Dataporter]

I've made a bunch of tooling, but this is one of my favorites.
This is a wrench for the mill spindle on my machine.



Before I made this, I had one heck of a time tightening and loosening the draw bar on my mill!
I simply measured the minor diameter of the outside of the spindle and measured the width of the splines on the spindle. Then I used my rotary table to drill six holes the diameter of the width of the splines, through a piece of 3/8 thick aluminum bar, a hair bigger than the pitch of the minor diameter of the spindle. Today I would use the bolt circle calculator of my DRO. Then I just drilled and bored out the center to just slightly larger than the minor diameter of the spindle.



Here is the wrench in action. This is a Godsend IMO. Notice my hand is on it. I try not to ever take my hand off it when on the spindle. Why? because this thing would be lethal if I ever forgot it was there and turned the machine on. So, I take it off the pegboard behind the machine, tighten or loosen the draw bar, and then return it to the pegboard without ever letting go of it.



Later, I even made good use of the other end of the wrench. I made a spanner for the 5C collet fixture that I scored for the quick change tool post for my lathe.





So this is certainly not an elegant or sophisticated tool, but it is worth it's weight in gold to me. I use it all the time.
Thanks for checking it out, let me know what you think!
Best regards,

Dave

 

[stevecmo]

Dave,

I like the way you think! Excellent idea.

Steve

 

[Golftech]

That's cool thanks for the idea, I'm going to make me one.

 

[sanddan]

Dave,

Nice job on making the wrench but be very careful using it. I have one very similar to yours and in a moment of distraction when changing end mills I forgot it was there and turned on the mill. This was on a RF45 clone and the resulting carnage was 2 broken gears a sheared pin and 2 bent shafts in the gear box. Lucky for me it stayed on the splined shaft so I wasn't hurt. When I contacted ENCO for parts they offered me a new mill as it was still on the one year warranty. That wrench will never go near my mill again. Now I put it the lowest gear which works fine. I also added a ER32 collet set to reduce the times I need to mess with the drawbar. I saw a spring loaded lock on ebay that is a more foolproof method as you have to keep your hand on the lock to keep it engaged. It will automatically disengage under spring pressure so no chance of an accident.

Good luck and be safe.

Dan

 

[GaryK]

Dave,

Nice job on making the wrench but be very careful using it. I have one very similar to yours and in a moment of distraction when changing end mills I forgot it was there and turned on the mill. This was on a RF45 clone and the resulting carnage was 2 broken gears a sheared pin and 2 bent shafts in the gear box. Lucky for me it stayed on the splined shaft so I wasn't hurt. When I contacted ENCO for parts they offered me a new mill as it was still on the one year warranty. That wrench will never go near my mill again. Now I put it the lowest gear which works fine. I also added a ER32 collet set to reduce the times I need to mess with the drawbar. I saw a spring loaded lock on ebay that is a more foolproof method as you have to keep your hand on the lock to keep it engaged. It will automatically disengage under spring pressure so no chance of an accident.

Good luck and be safe.

Dan

To avoid that from happening on any mill attach a length of chain long enough so that it's impossible to overlook. This will remind you so you don't leave it on your spindle.

Gary

 

[Dataporter]

To avoid that from happening on any mill attach a length of chain long enough so that it's impossible to overlook. This will remind you so you don't leave it on your spindle.

Gary

And paint it orange or red! As I said above, I take it off the pegboard, use it, then return it to the pegboard without ever taking my hand off of it!

 

[GaryK]

And paint it orange or red! As I said above, I take it off the pegboard, use it, then return it to the pegboard without ever taking my hand off of it!

My post was just a comment for anyone reading this thread. It wasn't necessarily aimed at you. )

 

[Dataporter]

My post was just a comment for anyone reading this thread. It wasn't necessarily aimed at you. )

Gary, it's ok, I didn't take it that way, because it needed to be repeated!

 

[ariscats]

Now there is another solution to this problem,though it suffers the same limitations,safety wise.

You take a No 22 metric closed wrench. Cut about 120 degrees from the ring an by using an angle grinder, form it to the desired shape.The fotografs will tell the story better than me.The last one shows it in place. Do not put much torque.The wrench is much

harder than the spindle.Danger of marking or worse.

Ariscats