Tailstock Die holder

[darkzero]

Total newb question here: how does a person make the hexagonal shaped hole for the die?


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One way is to drill or mill holes for clearance for the corners. Then use your flavor for indexing to mill the flats... collet block, rotab, dividing head, super spacer, EBI, etc.

 

[Driveslayer45]

So .... I bored the pocket to fit a socket, cut the diameter of the socket a little, leaving about .001 interference fit, and secured with loctite bearing retainer ( the green stuff), then cut off the socket and faced flush

 

[Tio Loco]

Hopefully this is not as cringe-worthy as it appears in the photo.

Bored the hex end of the body to 1" ID, then inserted the MT#2 taper of the shaft into the rotary table (a MT #2 bore) on my mill. This way, all of the lateral force for cutting the hex is born by the shaft. The hold-downs are just to prevent it from rotating on the shaft. Making conventional cuts, the rotational force was pressing against the hold downs.

Using a 3mm end mill, started with 12mm wide cuts to form flats every 60°, and then another couple of light passes all the way around until I could drop a die into the hex.

 

[DavidR8]

Those are both genius approaches!
Thanks gents. My mind is regularly blown by the creativity here

 

[mmcmdl]

Total newb question here: how does a person make the hexagonal shaped hole for the die?

With a hexdrill of course !

 

[ttabbal]

With a hexdrill of course !

I suppose one could build a rotary broach. That's close enough to a hex drill, isn't it?

 

[machPete99]

Usually the round dies are thought to be of higher quality HHS and intended for new thread cutting whereas hex dies are often for re-threading duty, so you might want to ignore their use here. That said a hex socket could possibly be cannibalized for this, brazed to something, etc. Or cannibalize a crappy hex die stock.