Double Sided Milling of Z Axis Stepper Mounts

[@roylucas1027]

It’s so refreshing watching a video that shows the good, bad and the ugly. I appreciate the honesty, the thought and the final solution. Thank you.

[@Dukefazon]

I like videos where they actually show the mistakes and they don't try to look flawless. That's much more entertaining and educational at the same time (makes me engaged with the problem at hand).

[@JohnSL]

Thank you. I find I learn the most from mistakes, and it seems that others can also learn from my mistakes.

[@GregsGarage]

I do a lot of flip milling. I handle it similarly... I have one corner that I chase as the part flips. I square my stock before OP1 and the top left is always the first origin. I actually use a small spot drill to mark the corner so if I'm running multiple parts over a series of days and operations, I can track the origin without having to rely on my memory.

[@billh308]

Your channel deserves so many more subscribers than it has. Keep up the good work.

[@kusler67]

Thanks for making these videos John. I love the detailed and have learned quite a bit. I wish I could keep my fusion files as neatly organized as yours! 😂

[@dass1333]

Looks good because it works great. Another useful video John.

[@lesthompson5907]

wear did you get ELS screw siystom from , i need one for my lathe.

[@LumaLabs]

The thing of it is - you had a through hole on both parts, which is kind of the ideal way to solve the problem. Machine the part with the traditional "hat" technique, machining down the walls as far as you can. As long as you locate the long edge off a fixed parallel surface, probing the bore is going to give you the XY location of everything else, from features cleanly machined and relative to everything done in Op1. What would have been your downfalls is the big No No of using the gripper inserts for 2nd op locating - these are *not* in any way a parallel surface! Ignoring the bite marks they produce, the fact that they displace material means you aren't locating the part off of anything truly rigid.

[@baconlips]

I'm a little late but this was a wonderful adventure! Thanks for the inspiration. Just looking at upgrading a new 'King Canada' 12x36 lathe to a 3 hp VFD, and the ELS pro controller with their motor kit. Will need brackets; your design is really great and it can be modified for the larger bed end geometry. It'll be about $3k CDN when finished - but the lathe is remarkably accurate from the factory (

[@bdot02]

I think I've seen it on this channel before, maybe not, but you can use those through holes as your point of reference on the second setup instead of the raw edge.

[@JohnSL]

Yes, I certainly could. At the moment, I don't fully trust the probe on circles, as I ran into some issues. I talked with Renishaw support and know what I need to do, but haven't gotten around to making the changes they suggested.

[@meddlingwithmetal7153]

@@JohnSLan I ask what the suggestion from Renishaw was John BTW, love your content !!!

[@therealslimbusy]

Have you considered sand blasting the aluminum parts? I have achieve similar results to the one you showed by sand blasting them for only a few seconds in a small blasting cabinet with a small compressor. Might be worth a try. Thanks for sharing your process. I have never even though about using a tumbler...until now...

[@JohnSL]

Yes. But I don’t own a blaster and I already had a tumbler. A tumbler takes up a lot less space, plus you can put in a bunch of parts and walk away. I think once I have better media, it shouldn’t be so slow.

[@TheDistur]

Cool project!

[@RoostersWay]

Greetings John, great video. Could you give some info on your tumbler.

[@JohnSL]

It's the 18lb one from Harbor Freight. I got it used to try it out and it works just fine. The choices they have in media, on the other hand, are very limited.

[@cre8itgroup903]

Great Video!! Why not bore the large hole all the way thru and use the hole center as your zero on the other side. If your vise is square your other side will be dead on!!

[@JohnSL]

I certainly could have. But I wanted to try this approach to see how close it would turn out.

[@David_11111]

yay

[@coltonraulerson]

This is really cool but i'm wondering why not just like hold on to .150 of the material in the vice do the whole op on one side flip it and then just face that last bit of? It would make the alignment part much easyers all the critical Features are done on one side and then you really just need to pick up a rough x & y and your z for the face mill op.

[@JohnSL]

I only had on hand 0.5" thick material at the width I needed. I could have ordered some thicker material, but I was curious to see how close I could get with this approach, so I used the material I had on hand. The parts came out well within tolerances. Would I use this approach to make a part for someone else? Nah, I'd go with a hat. Doing this, however, gave me more confidence in the accuracy I can get.

[@NS-no1li]

F360.. learn to use joints.. it will help you