My New 24x24 V-Groove Router Design Log

[widgitmaster]

A little more progress today. Last night I fussed with the placement of the components, to get a little idea of what I'm dealing with.

Then this morning I started working on the steel tubing for the router's table, first I made the four pieces that have a 45° on one end only. Then I milled the two pieces with no angle at all. Then I realized I had ordered the wrong length pieces for the bottom center tube. The one's I have are an inch too short! (brain fart ) So I quickly ordered two more pieces!

Next, I made a careful layout on the table base, and checked everything three times! Then I used my Saws-All to cut the steel section out. and deburred everything with my 2" disk sander. Now I have to wait another five days to get the missing steel tubes! They should be here Monday evening.

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Ah, finally back in the shop

This evening I started with a large block of 6061, 12 3/4 x 5 x 4.
The 1st thing I did was spray some ink on it, and scribe a pair of lines where it needs to be saw cut! Then I pushed it through my little band saw for about 25 minutes, occasionally putting some wax on the moving blade!

Then I setup my vise on the mill, and used my large fly-cutter to skim cut one surface. Then I flipped the block, so the machined surface is down. Now with a pair of Starrett Hold-Downs, I now have it setup for finishing the opposite side parallel. Then I placed the two machined surfaces between the vise jaws, and carefully closed the vise ensuring the part is seated between the jaws. Now I can skim cut one more side perpendicular to the last two. With one more flip, the part is ready to finish the last side.

Next I placed my large 6x9x12 angle plate on the mill table, right up close to the vise. After placing a couple clamps on either side, I dialed the angle in. Now with a side plate bolted on to the angle plate, I can put the big block in the corner, and use my large clamps. With a few light cuts from the fly-cutter, both ends are square. The overall length will be done later.

Tomorrow, I will add some of the details to this block, as it will become the newly revised Z-Axis slide block!

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Today I worked a few more hours on the Z-Axis slide block, this part has some any setups and procedures, that I needed to be careful not do do something out of sequence! Otherwise, the part becomes difficult to hold!

First I milled a step in one end bringing the slender end of the part to finished length, then I added a .187R fillet on location and to depth. Next I milled the three 5/16" wide slots for the T-Slots, they are spaces 1.0" apart. Then I milled the three T-Slots, and deburred the part.

[widgitmaster]

Next I milled the webs on the thick end for the V-Groove bearings & ball nut. Because the part is 12.5" long, I had to remove the vise and use the angle plate to drill & bore the precision hole for the ball nut. Then I had to remove the angle plate, and use the rotary table to mill the c-bore for the flange on the ball nut! This was a really tight fit, and I was ready to use a 4-jaw chuck in the lathe to do it! With a little patience, I had it dialed in and clamped tightly on the rotary table, milling the c-bore was an easy setup.

[widgitmaster]

Now it's time to layout the 6.9° angle, and band saw off the bulk material! Again, it took around 25 minutes to push the 4" thick block through the saw.

Next, I calculated the block size needed for my 5" sine plate, so that I could hold the part in the vise and mill the band sawed surface nice and flat. To hold the part in my Kurt vise, I needed to flip the hard jaws, so the stick up an extra 1/4"

Now, with a big 2-flute end mill, I blended the milled surface with the sharp corner from a previous operation. Then I used my big fly-cutter to do the entire surface in one pass. To help me blend in the fly-cut surface, I used an indicator and a small surface gage. First I stoned the top of my vise, so the gage would slide smoothly. the indicator showed that I had a step of .003", so I raised the knee and took one final pass.

Now I need to mill the web on the opposite surface, and drill the holes of the V-Groove bearings. The difficult part will be machining another counter bore opposite of the one for the ball nut flange! That will be done tomorrow.

Widgit

[BobWarfield]

Dang, you're just about ready to make some chips it looks like! I can't wait to see the "maiden voyage".

Widgit, you are truly in a class of your own. Thanks so much for letting us look over your shoulder. It's darned hard to keep up, but I constantly learn from the effort of trying.

Cheers,

BW

[.xXACEXx.]

widgit that thing is looking awsome!! in those picture the spindle is spinning as your fly cutting,and the bar kinda sorta is,transparent..pretty cool .this maybe pre-mature..but have you kept everything up to date on the drawing,enough to build and sell those or at least,to sell the drawings..to make clones of the machine...i think alot of people wold like to have one of those...either by building off your drawings,or by you building and selling em...just a thought...also,..what travel did you end up with after the change of z axis ??...looks good man,looks good..

[widgitmaster]

Thanks Bob!
An you think your anxious to see it run !!!

I have not created individual prints for every part, but I have a folder with all my sketches and their changes. Most all information is in the main CAD file, it would take me a month to make a full set of prints!

The Z-Axis travel is unchanged, only the extension was added! The maximum travel of this Super-V Router is X=19, Y=19, Z=9

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Today I milled off the excess material on the Z-Axis slide block, leaving a 1/2" wide rib down the center of the front. To do this I need to make a tooling hole exactly in the center of the fillet radius above the T-Slots. This was done with a 1/8" center drill, on both sides of the slide block.

Next, I simply clamped the part to the mill's table, and dialed in the 6.9° angled surface I made yesterday. Then I dialed the center of the tooling hole and set my DRO to zero. Now with a .750 Dia end mill, I slowly milled back and forth until the cutter was close to the tooling hole. Then I set the travel stop on my power feed so the table stopped .2" from zero.
Next, I used the quill to plunge cut the fillet radius staying about .015" away from my finish point. Then I proceeded to mill the remaining material off. After one final pass on all surfaces, one side of the web is finished.

Then I flipped the part over, and repeated the process.!

[widgitmaster]

The drawing shows a row of holes in the center web, I figured they would lighten up the block, and make it look really cool. But I plan on doing them at a later date!

Next I need to put in the other counter bore, the one inside the long 6.9° angle! This is a little challenging, but I think I have a few tricks stored in my tool boxes to pull this off!

First I need to center the bore in the middle of the rotary table, and clamp the block securely. In order to dial in the bore, I need to use my extra long indicator holder, which is made from a .375" dia stainless shaft. The other thing I needed was my little dental mirror to see the needle of the dial indicator!

Now that I's all dialed in and the DRO is zeroed, I will need to get a long end mill extension! Again, I had one in my tool box left over from another project! It is 7/8" dia on one end, 1 1/4" OD and has a .750 dia bore 2" deep with a setscrew to hold an end mill.

With the 7/8 collet in the spindle, and the long extension holding a long end mill, I was able to reach the bore and set the end of the end mill to zero. Now this counter bore is only clearance for the Z-Axis lead screw's thrust bearing block. So nothing is real critical!

After sever light cuts, I was able to make the counter bore about .015 bigger and deeper than the thrust block.

After that was done, I setup the vise with tall aluminum jaws, so I could hold the slide block and drill & tap the holes for the V-Bearings! After the bearings were mounted, I could see the Y-Axis slide block was .016" too wide, and the bearings did not align with the tracks. So I quickly re-cut the Y-Axis slide and assembled the entire unit!

I have to say, this is an incredible sliding machine, with no end play or backlash!

Next, my efforts will e to make the Table modifications, get them welded and painted so that I can mount the heavy duty drawer slides to the big box!

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

An easy day today, as I was out of town for most of the morning!
When I arrived home there were several packages waiting at my door step, one of them contained the steel tubing for the table!

So after dinner, I made a quick layout with a scribe, band sawed the excess off, and milled the angles to the exact lengths!

Tomorrow, I will bring the parts to the welder so that I can get another section of this big project finished! The drawer slides have also arrived, and look incredible! With a little gray paint, the box and table will really make my new toy shine

Widgit

[.xXACEXx.]

cool....hey widgit i was just wondering have you set a "date" for completion of the router to be making chips?...you seem to make alot of progress every day...either in drawing and alterations or making chips ,if you had a router mounted you could be making chips manually!..lol better not...but i would be itching to try it out, ya know...it looks soo close to being finished.....,from the pictures (great job with those by the way) it looks like there is little space between the table and the x axis side plates...about .100 ? shouldnt have any problem with chips getting in the way of the rollers....youve done a great job with "foward thinking" in the design...

[biotech1]

Heh Wigit thats one kick AZZ setup you have going really nice I mean really damn nice. Heh question I do sandcasting on the side if i send you some aluminum blocks would you make me one of those setups I'll even pay for return shipping???? figured I'd ask..

[widgitmaster]

xXACEXx,
All I can say is cutting metal & using AutoCAD is a piece of cake; however, getting all the electronics working perfectly the 1st time is anyone's guess! Then of course I still need to learn how to use BobCAD/CAM & BobART to really make the project pay for itself! Not to mention my limited exposure to the MACH3 software!

After I built my first router, I got side tracked into building lots of Mini & Midi-Routers! So the 1'st router hardly got used! Jumping into it blindly is not going to happen!

There are several little details that still need to be finished before all the mechanical parts are complete, such as drilling holes in all three axis slide blocks for the ball-nut grease fittings! Also, the big Delrin blocks that will attach to the wire tracks still need to be worked up in CAD, and milled to suit the rest of the router. And of course, I still need to make all the cutouts in the big steel box for the computer, fans, switches, lights & other stuff. Oh yeah, the Monitor Swing Arm also needs to be modified!

It sounds like a tall order, but I'm not in a hurry - I'm retired

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Heh Wigit thats one kick AZZ setup you have going really nice I mean really damn nice. Heh question I do sandcasting on the side if i send you some aluminum blocks would you make me one of those setups I'll even pay for return shipping???? figured I'd ask..

Thanks biotech1,
As for the sand casting, I'm not ready to make another one of these large machines, as you can see from all the pictures, it barely fit in my machines! Not to mention all that work for free???? Nah.....

Widgit

[widgitmaster]

Late last night I was thinking about how I would be fastening the drawer slides to the table's new frame, that a screw going through a hollow tube would never tighten and cause problems in the future. So I decided to make a couple of steel plugs!

First I started with a bunch of rusty old bolts, band sawed the heads & threads off, and cleaned up the ends in the lathe. Then I drilled a hole straight through them.

Next I setup the mill to quickly drill two 5/8" dia holes on location through the steel tubing. Now when I get the assembly welded, the plugs will also be welded on both ends, so the hole in the tube will be solid steel!

Now I need to find a pickup-truck to help me haul it all to the welder!

[widgitmaster]

For the last few days I have been trying to figure out the best, easiest, and lightest way to attach the wire track to the Y-Axis slide block. After several days in CAD, I came up with the basic design.
First I started with a 24x4x4 block of black Delrin, then I cut off a piece 7" long. After squaring it up with my fly-cutter, I scribed some layout lines and band sawed a chunk out of it. Then after several little setups, I had a basic idea of what I wanted. Then I placed in on the V-Router, to see what it looked like. Other than it being too heavy, is was exactly what I wanted.
After looking at it for a while, I realized I could put a center hole in the end opposite of the bore for the electrical socket. That I could use the 4-jaw chuck in my lathe to turn the center section round. As this would be the easiest way to remove lots of material, and lighten it up!
The block fastens to the back of the Y-Axis slide, and has a 3/8" dia hole which connects the upper cavity in the Slide block, to the bore for the motor socket.
The other end has a female end equivalent to the end of the wire track, so the track can snap in like it belongs there! The upper wire track will have three cables in it, one from the Z-axis motor, and two from the Y/Z limit switches.

The next block is just as crazy, and will have a shape similar to the side plate with it's angle. The CAD is almost finished for that block.

There would have been more pictures, but black Delrin is difficult to photograph!

Oh yeah, the table is at the welder, and should be ready Monday!

Widgit.

[snoyce]

OUtstanding ok you got me, where do i place my order

[widgitmaster]

OUtstanding ok you got me, where do i place my order

Thanks snoyce!
Widgit

[widgitmaster]

The table is back from the welder, and he did a bang-up job!
So I immediately started drilling holes in the big box to mount the drawer slides, then I made a quick trip to ACE Hardware for screws, sand paper, primer and paint!

After about an hour of sanding with an orbital sander and 150-grit paper, and another 25 min of hand sanding in all the places that I could not get to with the power sander. I wiped the whole thing down with mineral spirits and a soft rag, then a quick coat of light gray primer.

I think I'll wait until everything is finished before I give the table & box a final coat of paint!

This is the best looking piece of furniture in the house, I can't wait to get it up and running!

Widgit