Angle grinder triumphs again!

[Matty F]

Once again my angle grinder has done a superb job. The grinder cost me only NZ$8.50 (3.50 GBP).

I needed to copy this steel black-painted clamp. The original was probably cast about 100 years ago and I don't happen to have a foundry. So I had to carve it out of a solid block of steel. The finished clamp, except that it still needs an extension welded to the handle:

's how I made it. The original old clamp and a block of steel: with the hardest part. Drill a hole and cut down to it: more easy straight cuts: had to drill a couple more holes and cut down to them. Used a grinder to round around the hole. It still may not be possible to do this! few more cuts, then out with the angle grinder with a flapper disk! It pays to leave something to hold, opposite the difficult end: and quicker than taking it to a foundry!

[Tim Downie]

I think you can take a little bit of the credit too Matty! Great work.

Tim

[Peter Andrews]

Wow - words fail me for your ambition!

Peter

[Matty F]

Thanks. It's a bit like wood carving, only harder! Actually I use a Skilsaw for carving wood.

[The Medway Handyman]

I think we can safely say its paid for itself :-)

Amazing - how long did it take you?

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

*Impressed*

Well done, that angle-grinderist!

Si

[Matty F]

About six hours! I did have the advantage of this bandsaw (a cutoff saw not really designed for this job):

I think I would have given up with just a hacksaw.

[dennis]

I was going to say the cuts were too neat for an angle grinder.

[Jules]

Nah, you can remove fingers just as easily with either ;)

Nice work. Got me wondering how practical a home foundry is :-)

[gunsmith]

Try

at your own risk.

[Colin Wilson]

It takes more than an angle grinder to accomplish that - get yourself a beer, you've earned it !

[Matty F]

Now I need to make that bolt with the flat head with a hole through it. Tomorrow I will try heating up a bolt head red hot and hitting it with a hammer.

For those curious what it's for, the restoration project looks rather like this one:

looks damn dangerous to me! Are there any safety laws about that? :)

[Jon Fairbairn]

Yes, it's the sort of thing I would have expected to do with (inter alia) a milling machine. So, what's the cheap alternative for the jobs I would expect to use a lathe for?

[Matty F]

I'm not sure how I could use a milling machine for all those curves. It would require many changes of position of the work and changes of the tool, which in my limited experience takes a long time. I can use the bandsaw to chop out large pieces of steel without having to cut through all of it, and a fixed grinder and angle grinder can be moved around the work quickly.

I used the same angle grinder to finish off this steel part that I chopped out with the bandsaw and a lathe:

was a better candidate for a milling machine, which I have now learned how to use.

[Jon Fairbairn]

It's a /long/ time since I used one, so it's entirely possible that vices that permit rotation of the work while machining are a figment of my imagination, but for cutting an arc or rounding the end of something to a half-cylindrical profile, that's what you'd need. (I can find swivel vices on the net, but can't see if they can be turned while milling). I would finish the web(?) curves off with a grinder, though.

Still, you didn't answer my question: what do you use when you need a lathe;-)?

[Andy Dingley]

It's usual to use either a rotary table for this, with a simple vice bolted on top, or else to use a dividing head with a lathe chuck on it.

Some might argue that it's abuse of a dividing head to do this, but most people who have dividing heads at all are using vast industrial surplus ones that dwarf their mills, so they won't suffer too badly.

If you're a "Model Engineer" the traditional approach for doing the ends of coupling rods seems to be a fixed pin and free-swinging it handheld. Even at that scale it's a f*ck*ng heathen practice that will cost you fingers, smashed work and smashed tooling.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Matty F saying something like:

People had common sense, then.

[Matty F]

How about next year when our one is finished? Do we ban 7 foot high people with umbrellas from going upstairs? :)

[Matty F]

Thank you for for mentioning dividing heads. I'll have a look at the equipment that came with our mill. Otherwise I will make one!

That sounds dangerous. So far I've managed to avoid injuring myself or damaging tools. I guess I'm more involved with heavy engineering.

[David]

it:

> Six more easy straight cuts:> I had to drill a couple more holes and cut down to them. Used a

end:

> Cheaper and quicker than taking it to a foundry!

That's amazing.