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Projects
Soft jaws
Last time around I made these parts on a vacuum fixture but due to the small surface area (and maybe the slot for the o-ring being slightly too deep) I had marginal clamping force which led to low feed rates. I have a bunch of these parts to make so I wanted easy secure clamping. The parts are 9.5″ long in my 6″ vice. The threaded hole in the end of the jaw is to attach a locating stop for the 2nd and 3rd drilling operations. Slots allow changing soft jaws without fully removing jaw screws. Blank jaws in place. Finished machined...
read moreRack mount FDNY radio panel
Radio panels that fits in standard 19″ rack. 7U height. Engraved and painted test. I like the volume knob symbol showing the machining marks. It looks nice painted as well. 5″ deep custom back box to mount radio...
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US Capitol Name Plate Holders
I was excited to get this job from the US government. It is an honor to have my work in the US Capitol building! Brass name plate holders that allow the name plates to be changed easily. Brass is great to work with and doing a relatively large number gave me a chance to experiment with a vacuum fixture which went...
read moreVacuum Fixturing
This is my first foray into vacuum fixuring. Fixture is aluminum with 1/8″ rubber o-ring stock. Overall it was successful but I have some things I will do differently next time. The fixture is designed so I could side mill both ends and spot drill with a carbide drill/mill. The cutting action on the left end was pulling the stock away from the fence and I needed to reduce the feed dramatically to keep the stock from sliding. An extra stop or full slot for the material would fix this. I originally had a .1″ deep slot for the o-ring...
read more19″ Rack Mount 3.5″ Hard Drive Bay
Allows swapping of hard drives in customers rack. 19″ racks are a good, economical way to neatly store a lot of...
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Hood Block
A designer for The North Face saw hat blocks I made a few months ago and asked if one could be done for a hood. The hood block will be machined in two halves, glued together and finished. The piece begins as a stack of wood glued together. What will be the inside of one half is faced and holes are drilled for registration. Mirrored on the other half. The blocks are cut with a bandsaw using the milled area as a guide. Simple fixture to register the holes in the block to the mill table. First roughing operation. Second roughing operation....
read moreKnife blank probing
I bought this Spyderco Mule Knife blank with the intention of making some custom scales for it. I probed the entire perimeter of the knife in case I want to make a machined sheath or a positive for forming a Kydex sheath. I wrote a fairly crude probing routine and let it run while I did some other work. I also found the locations and diameters of the holes in the knife blank for rivets or...
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