New Addition for the Shop :)

Since getting the mill I have been trolling the local Craigslist entries in search of a reasonably sized lathe.  This weekend, I found a used Clausing 6303 12x24 inch machine up in Temecula (~30 minutes north of here). Supposedly this machine had been sitting in a garage for 30 years.

Here it is on the trailer in front of the garage:

 Hmm, That angle looks kind of familiar ,....


Here is a closeup of the headstock showing some of the Grime that still needs to come off:

Mill Vise Fixture Plate

I was inspired by this article on Tom Liptons OxTool blog to make a clamping plate for my mill vise. As Tom points out, this is a great way to hold on to those odd parts that won't really work in the vise but would be easy to hold in the T-Slots, if you just didn't need to take off that darn vise...

Fixture shown clamping a thin part
 

Fixture used as an Angle Plate

Idea for controlling flying chips

I was getting annoyed at having chips flying in my face and across the garage. After a few moments of thinking, I came up with the following setup:

Panels Set up near vise

The front Shield consists of a wood base with a slot for a piece of lexan milled into it. Both the front and the side pieces are attached to the mill table using magnets from old Hard drives. These magnets are used to move the head in and out and are made from high-energy rare earth magnets. This means, that they REALLY stick well. :)

Hdd Magnet mounted to base of front window

HDD Magnet and mounting block for side panel

In use, the front shield keeps chips off of the operator (me) while still allowing me to see the cut. The side walls keep the chips near the machine instead of having them fly all the way across the garage.