A whole bunch of 0XA QCTP holders

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mattthemuppet2

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made a bunch a few years ago when I got my QCTP and as I've added new tools over the meantime I've run out of holders. Swapping tools out of holders started to get old in a hurry (and defeats the whole point) so a nice piece of 4x1x11" steel scrap that I found at work (I think it was a door stop) looked like a good candidate. 0XA holders are 2x1x1" in size, so that piece should get me 22 holders. Also needed a 5/8" boring bar holder for my larger drill chucks, so made one of those too.

milling the dovetail slots with a 3/8" rougher
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cutting the dovetails with a homemade single flute cutter using a TCGT insert
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dovetails done. I love my X-axis powerfeed!
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checking for fit
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started cutting off slices on my horizontal bandsaw, love that tool too
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while that was going on I got temporarily distracted and made my 5/8" boring bar holder
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mostly to be used for larger reamers as I'm a little leary of trying to push big drills with the carriage wheel
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starting to figure out what holders I need
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cut the slots for my 10mm turning tool holders
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then cut those in half to make a pile of blanks
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knurled, drilled and tapped a bunch of height adjusters. Boy that was tedious.
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drilled and tapped. Used a vise work stop and the "DRO" on the drill press to drill the holes, then a hand drill to countersink and tap them 10-32.
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making another parting tool holder, so I can have 2 blades the same width but at different projections as these are a bit tedious to adjust stick out
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bit of a duplicate pic, but this is the "before black oxide treatment"
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steel soup
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all finished!
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I think they came out really well! Now have to load them up with tools. Also need to get my 3D printer set up in the garage so I can print more holders for my holders.

Have 1 finished blank and a 2" chunk of the original piece left (4 holders within) as my bandsaw jaws couldn't hold onto it. Next project - making new bandsaw jaws
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Nice work!
+1 on the soup ingredients!


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thanks everyone! It did take a while, must have started around the end of January and whittled away at it a little here and there. Good stress relief. Doing a bunch at once did reduce the amount of time per holder though. Drilling and tapping all those holes probably only took a couple of hours if that.

Steel soup - wash steel in Dawn, wipe down with acetone and handle with gloves on (I didn't do the last two, so there was some blotchiness). Add 10g of ammonium nitrate per liter water (I used 20g in 2l), bring to boil, put in CLEAN steel and stir every 20min or so for an hour. Take out, dry and oil. That's it. Solution was poured into a juice container for reuse. Only tricky part is getting hold of ammonium nitrate - you can get it off eBay or Amazon (look for DIY instant cool pack ingredients) or have a friend who's a Chemistry Professor, who gets some out of the chemistry prep room :)
 
oh and the large holder was cold blued (Brownells Oxphoblue?). A bit paler than the black oxide and doesn't seem to retain oil as well.
 
You can buy home shop amounts of ammonium nitrate in the exploding binary targets for sale at your local gun shop. Just discard the packet of aluminum powder. I have a bunch of tool holders to finish as well, I may give it a shot.
 
that's cool, didn't know that! You used to be able to get it from instant cold packs, but most of them have now gone to using urea instead. I produce more than enough of that for free :)
 
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