Flattening scales on drill press

[alexkuzn]

Because I cut my wood on metal bandsaw cuts are irregular so I have to take lots of wood to make scale flat.
Till today I used 2x72 grinder and 12" disc to grind scales flat. No good. It makes lots of dust, overheats wood, kills belts, and sides are hardly parallel.

Today I tried 1/4" end mill(the only one I have) in my drill press to flatten scales.
I love it! Faster, flatter, no dust.

My questions: 1
1. How do you clamp scales to the x-y table(I hold a scales with my hands now)
2. What bit would work better than regular end mill for steel? I am pretty satisfied with end mill but it sometimes chips off small pieces of ebony at edges of a scale.

[Brett Holmes]

maybe you could try a router bit, theyre designed for wood.

this sounds like an interesting idea, how do you move the peice around to cover the whole area, do you just push it with your hands??
brett

[alexkuzn]

Just push it around with my hands.

[T-Wolf]

man,you got more guts than a high diver.

[Airborne Steel]

How about one of these..

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32997

Just might keep you in 10 fingers.

[alexkuzn]

I already have nice x-y table and a vise. But you can't really clamp a scale into a vise.
You need to somehow clamp it to the table.

[Diggerdog]

Hi Alex. You could buy a regular clamping kit from Little Machine Shop or Ebay and clamp the wood to your drill press table. It should work as well as clamping scales to a plate on a milling machine.

[AcridSaint]

Alex, you could use an orbital sander to flaten things out. Just use your callipers to check and see if the thickness is right, adjust and take it slow. By the way, I'll be out in Sacramento next month and my wife wants to see SF one of the days we're out there. We should get together for an hour or something, bore my wife with shop talk

[beebee58]

I'm a SLOW learner, but I'm not "seeing" why you can't hold the scales in the vise ?
I leave my scales square or retangle and clamp them into the vise. I then use machinest parrelles (spelling) under them to make sure they are the correct height. I also made a plywood sled to hold my X-Y vise and either bolt it or clamp it to the drill press table.

Works for me,
BB

[B.Finnigan]

I have used fly cutters that have a radius slightly bigger then the width of the scales to flatten them. I have never had good success on wood using an endmill, it always leaves tracks on each pass. Just yesterday I finally got a granite slab for leather working and getting a perfect flat surface on metal or wood. Up to now I was using a chunk of 1" aluminum plate but it was heat sensitive. Taking from my shop to inside or back out to the shop would slightly warp it. A friend of mine thought it was a granite countertop sample and was going to throw it out. Her great uncle did leather work so I knew it was not a counter top sample.

Using a granite slab is a bit tedious but you can't beat it for getting a flat surface.

[T-Wolf]

not giving you a hard time,Alex.you just need to rethink your operation.hard to make any knives with a few fingers gone.take care

[alexkuzn]

I agree that it's dangerous to hold it with hands. That's why I want to clamp it.

[alexkuzn]

AcridSaint,

OK let's get together when you are here. Please let me know in advance when you are coming.

Alex

[Thad Buchanan]

Alex, there are a couple of ways to clamp the material and machine the handle side. You can use a flat steel plate with holes tapped through it and make some workholding clamps for the plate. Clamp the material down on one end and machine the other end to approx. the halfway point. Then, one at a time, move your clamps to the other end and machine the rest of your material.

Another way of accomplishing the same thing is to machine a step in you vise jaws so you can set the material into the step and tighten the vise on the sides leaving the part you want to machine above the vise.

I have both set ups in my shop and could try to post photos if I can figure how. I'm not too bright when it comes to computers. Let me know if anyone would like to see what I'm talking about. I'm leaving for Blade West today, but will check in when I get back next week.

Here's a hint: When you're machining along the edge of material like wood that wants to flake away at the edges, climb mill instead of conventional milling. That way the cutter is turning into the material instead of away from it. In conventional milling the cutter will grab the material and pull it away from the piece causing chips.

[AcridSaint]

Hey Alex, I'll be in Cali from the 7th through the 15th, shoot me a pm with a good way to get ahold of you and I'll let you know which days we're considering making the drive. We didn't make any concrete plans but I'm guessing it will be that Monday or Tuesday.