Lapping plates

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Hukshawn

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I am about 3/4 through the lapping plates videos Tom Lipton did. It seems inexpensive and easy to do in any shop. Just takes time. I have a few different lapping and polishing compounds already from various wood working jobs finishing lacquer finishes. I do not believe the aggregate is all that different?
In any event, I'm thinking about trying this.
He had ductile iron for most of the video, but at the beginning he had aluminum plates laid out too. Aluminum seems awfully soft?

I've had an idea. To me, lapping plates seems like a poor man's way to surface grind. Lapping and measuring then lapping some more? I suppose I should get a good surface guage, one with that bumping nose on the front? I suppose that could be a project too.
But, to do things like making 123 blocks and lapping them square off the mill, or, touching up my parralells? Or the vise jaws in currently making. It would allow me to harden them then true them up. I have my eye on a nice bench top surface grinder, but it's very unrealistic I'll come up with the cash. So, a man's gotta look in other directions.

Thoughts? Opinions?
 
using a soft substrate like aluminum will allow the abrasive to embed into the surface of the lap
abrasive embeds in Cast iron too, but not as readily
you can use lapping plates in lieu of a surface grinder, but time is a factor for large projects
a Dial indicator or Dial Test Indicator would be nice to determine square or parallelism and then to measure your progress
 
Most of the stuff I make I small. And my time is just my time. If it doesn't get done it gets done another night.
The idea has me inspired.
 
Take a look at Tom's latest video. He's using a copper lap and he gets the part flat pretty damn fast! Oh, and that was after the part had been ground!
 
I did see that one! It was quick! But I have to assume that chunk of copper was considerably more expensive than the iron and certainly more than the aluminum.

Any one think of some other ways to cut the slots in the plate? I have many wood saws of sorts, but all the blades would be too thick, and not a fan of the skill saw method (which the blade is quite thin) and I don't have a band saw.
I don't remember what the width of the groves were. I have a 1mm slitting saw I could rig up some how?
 
I’m going to watch this thread. I have some interest in making a set
 
For cutting the slots could you use a small end mill, in a mill. Don’t know if you have a mill though.
 
Tom Lipton's 3plate method vid was very inspiring and I got hooked into that too as I had a couple of projects I wanted to do. Mainly fixing things like my supposedly bargain surface gage I got off eBay. But there are details that take deeper understanding. You need a good surface plate, a good height gage and very good test indicators to be able to see what you have accomplished. Or in the case of Tom that optical flat setup.

Stuff off the lathe(the plates) or mill take a lot more than a couple of minutes. He spent a lot of time setting up the plates and if you buy through McMaster Carr it's about $100 with shipping, maybe more. I found a 10" old cast iron lapping plate for $100 delivered off eBay and it's perfect as I can measure across.
Hukshawn said:
I am about 3/4 through the lapping plates videos Tom Lipton did. It seems inexpensive and easy to do in any shop. Just takes time. I have a few different lapping and polishing compounds already from various wood working jobs finishing lacquer finishes. I do not believe the aggregate is all that different?
In any event, I'm thinking about trying this.
He had ductile iron for most of the video, but at the beginning he had aluminum plates laid out too. Aluminum seems awfully soft?

I've had an idea. To me, lapping plates seems like a poor man's way to surface grind. Lapping and measuring then lapping some more? I suppose I should get a good surface guage, one with that bumping nose on the front? I suppose that could be a project too.
But, to do things like making 123 blocks and lapping them square off the mill, or, touching up my parralells? Or the vise jaws in currently making. It would allow me to harden them then true them up. I have my eye on a nice bench top surface grinder, but it's very unrealistic I'll come up with the cash. So, a man's gotta look in other directions.

Thoughts? Opinions?
Click to expand...

The aluminum was what he glued the penny's to make a poor mans copper flat. I didn't see him using it again but he has so many vids I skip around. IMHO it's very useful and I did get pulled in and found an old cast iron 10" lapping plate in wonderful condition and used it to do a job I was wanting to do. If your time is no big deal, yeah it can do some nice stuff. But really is a lot more involved when I went to do it. Because I have the one plate I have to clean it thoroughly when I want to go from coarse to fine or I get scratches. You can go the other way, fine to coarse without cleaning, but when would you do that? Cleaning off the lapping compound can be pretty messy too. A tip he showed in another bid which he made it sound like he did all the time was to use timesaver compound by micro surface ( https://www.ws2coating.com/). I've not gotten to it yet, but I guess this somehow dissolves so you only mix up with oil what you need and it goes away as you use it getting finer and finer. They use it for lapping in rear ends in race cars as the final step after installing the rear end! You just drain the pile after running it a while. Try doing that with usual compound! So I got me a test kit for $35 and am going to try a run again on the old plate.
 
Redmech said:
I’m going to watch this thread. I have some interest in making a set
Click to expand...

Lol. Jeez. I guess I have to do this project now then.

I thought about a small end mill. But feared I'd just snap a whole boat load of them trying to cut iron.
Which is what made me think of the slitting saw. I have an 8" rotary table I could mount the plates to. Or even an angle plate would work. Hmmm. I'm more and more intrigued with this.

However. Its leading to soooo many projects. I'll need to make a surface guage for the surface plate that will accept my DTI. Ill need to make an arbor fory slitting saw I haven't used yet. I'll need to finally build that power feed I've been mulling over, because hand cranking 50 slots super slow will drive a man to drink... And I'll need to finish all the current projects I have on the go right now.

Maaan, I need a vacation just to find all the time. Haha.

But I'm seriously considering all this. I emailed metal supplier to get a price on the iron. I'm thinking 6" or 7" plates. Bigger is harder and more time consuming, but a bigger surface will allow me to lap bigger items. Like the 6" vise jaws I'm making. Oh man, that's another project I need to get done. It never ends!!
 
i had a 2 side cast iron surface plate, which i made 1 side into a lapping plate, used a 1/8" ball end mill to mill the slotts, took a lot of time a couple of winters ago.
 
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