machinist cube

[churchjw]

After seeing the cool post about guys here doing machinist cubes I finally tried one.



Sorry for not having better pictures but I took these with the cell phone. The cube worked great first time. It is 1.875" sq with 2 inner cubes. Took about 2 hours to make. The only thing that didn't turn out well was I should have used shims with the chuck. So it has marks on each face as you can see in the pictures.

Jeff

 

[Old Iron]

Looks good to me Jeff, After I get all my tooling made I mite give it a try.

Paul

 

[stevecmo]

Nice job Jeff!!

I'd like to make one of those as well. Everyone (family) asked after I got my lathe, "what are you going to make?". Now that I have a mill, same questions. I usually tell them that they say if you have a lathe and a mill you can build anything, so I'm going to build a time machine. Yeah, I get some looks.

Anyway, this would give me something I could show them......other than tooling of course, which they don't seem to understand. "You're making tools for your tools?"

Steve

 

[atwatterkent]

I have the students in my Jr college shop class machine them in the mill. We use 1" stock and only make one internal cube but it's good practice for first semester students with an edge finder in locating the center of a piece of stock on all six sides. Also making a perfectly square block is a challenge for them.

 

[DaveD]

Great. Now take the cube and throw it in a vibratory tumbler for about 48 hours and it will come out nice and shiny.

Also take a flat surface and some 220/320/400 grit sandpaper and you will be able to sand those scratches out pretty easy, assuming its aluminum. Put the sandpaper on the flat surface face up and move the cube around on it. Lots of lube too. Wd40 works.

 

[churchjw]

Nice job Jeff!!

I'd like to make one of those as well. Everyone (family) asked after I got my lathe, "what are you going to make?". Now that I have a mill, same questions. I usually tell them that they say if you have a lathe and a mill you can build anything, so I'm going to build a time machine. Yeah, I get some looks.

Anyway, this would give me something I could show them......other than tooling of course, which they don't seem to understand. "You're making tools for your tools?"

Steve

My wife says the same thing. What do you build besides tools and parts for your tools? LOL They don't understand the fun of it. :rofl:

Jeff

 

[churchjw]

I have the students in my Jr college shop class machine them in the mill. We use 1" stock and only make one internal cube but it's good practice for first semester students with an edge finder in locating the center of a piece of stock on all six sides. Also making a perfectly square block is a challenge for them.

Yea, this was a demo (and my first one :bitingnails For my students in a machining for design students class. I have 12 students doing these on the lathe. After you dial in a cube 12 times on a four jaw you get good at it. I am already seeing them use the 4 jaw for other projects now that they are comfortable with it. They are also starting to see the beauty of HHS cutters on the lathe. Before this class all that they had used were carbide inserts. For this project they had to grind their own tool and now they see all the new options it opens up, not to mention the better surface finish. One kid asked me why the 4 jaw chuck makes the part look so much better. :lmao: It took a bit for it to dawn on him that it was the cutter. They do have to mill the block square using a fly cutter that they made in an earlier project.

Jeff

 

[Chucketn]

Jeff, PM sent. (to the wrong poster) Another one in a moment...

Chuck

 

[atwatterkent]

Our students, while using the mill, have to indicate each side on both x & y axis to locate each center which is also good practice. We make them out of CRS and surface grind them to size and finish.

 

[Jeffers]

Do you have a picture of your lathe tool profile?