Its been a while since I have been able to do any 'proper' machining due to health, refit for our fishing boat, making some pens (my only indulgence...honest), and trying to become a silversmith! My task today however was to fulfil a commission. Yes, my first ever commission, a pair of brackets to be secured to a concrete newel post and hold a pair of stainless steel glass clamps.
Yesterday, whilst laid up I decided to use my 3D package to draw up a design to match the design brief. Normally I would make a part as I went along and have found it difficult to design away from the workshop. So if I could make the drawing then this would be a real first and a continuation of my learning experience.
I did take a while trying to find a 3D package and had several false starts. I had played with a useful package but when trying to get it to produce drawings from the model it was very difficult. That's when I found Alibre and downloaded their free package. At the time the retail price of the full version was around £800 - £1000 (from memory) and the only limitation of the free version was the number of parts you could put into an assembly.
I have found Alibre to be really good for me as one advantage for me was little or no previous CAD experience so I didn't have to 'un-learn'(horrible word - sorry) anything. The big advantage with Alibre is the very simple transfer of your work to drawings, its really simple.
Armed with my drawing I found some stock aluminium and after getting two suitable 'lumps' using the Clarke bandsaw it was over to the milling machine to fly cut two faces for marking out. One recent addition to the workshop marking out tools was a digital angle setting tool (£19.99 from Axminster tools). I can highly recommend the tool and can see it being of great use in the future.
Marking out tools and the drawings in the background
 Baileigh Industrial Digital Angle Mitre Finder with Ruler  £38.50
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 STAINLESS STEEL EASY ANGLE FINDER RULER PROTRACTOR 610MM MAXIMUM OPENED LENGTH £8.49
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Once the two faces were completed they were covered with layout fluid (does anyone know of a supplier in the UK for red marking out fluid? If so please email me) I got out my granite surface plate and digital height gauge and marked out the design as per the drawing produced by 3D CAD. To enable me to use the new digital angle ruler I needed to raise the block of aluminium so decided to use my set of slip gauges bought on ebay. Its a very nice old set of gauges with Bakelite inserts and as I was not firing on all cylinders made sure I opened the box the right way up using the front securing hook as my guide and yes, I got it wrong! The result was a lot of small pieces of steel all over the floor! Tut tut said I......
Ooopppsss!
After gathering up the slips I put them to one side whilst I finished the marking out. Once this was completed I knew how much I needed to remove by bandsaw. This was the first time I needed to use the Carke bandsaw for any angled cuts. My previous smaller Warco bandsaw cut angles by swinging the whole bandsaw on a pivot however the Clarke moved the vice and not the bandsaw.
This is when I discovered a new (to me) method of work holding with the bandsaw which would not have been available on the Warco. By removing the small movable vice jaw I could attach a clamp fixing bolt in its place and by judicious use of the spanner, held the aluminium in place. This allowed me to cut something that would never have been possible with the old bandsaw and opens up all sorts of ideas for future cuts!
The new (to me) method of holding work in the Clarke bandsaw
Having gotten the two pieces of aluminium roughly to shape I decided to call it a day and hopefully tomorrow if I am up to it I can make real progress in completing the brackets. So it was indoors to sort out the slip up with the slip gauges!
Trying to sort out the mess of dropped slips!
