236 The Fence That Your Mill is Missing

I always take a cut off the surface of my cross table squaring fixture after it is bolted to the table and before I put my part edge against it. That way I know that it is true to the Y axis. It has a sacrificial face that is screwed to it and is replaceable that sits approximately an 1/16” off the table so that there is no corner between the face and the table for a burr or swarf to collect in. No keys are needed with this method.

Hi Dudley. I took a different tack with this when I made mine. I have it raised from the table by 0.125”. I didn’t go through all the trouble you did. Three holes for the screws. But I really wasn’t concerned with precision when making it. When I installed it, I indicated it the way you do with a vise and got it pretty parallel. But then I finely machined the surface parallel, on the machine. I didn’t bother to machine the back, as it’s not needed. But the other difference is that it doesn’t span the slots. It’s along the rear slot. I use Miti Mite clamps to hold the work along the work. I can move the clamps around to machine the sides.

One more possible use for this - could bolt it to the bottom of a small rotary table, or fixture plate - then you can hold it either flat or at an angle in the mill vise, for small jobs.. I do this with a small rotary table.. saves removing & re-installing the mill vise.. might need to add some smaller threaded holes that fit the rotary table attachments..

If the fixture needs to be trammed in, then maybe it is simpler to just tram the part. On most builds there is only one base plate but many plates can be trammed in the time it takes to remove / replace and retram the vise. I never remove my vise. In rare situations where I need to machine a long edge of a plate. I clamp a long piece of hollow section in my vise and G clamp the plate to it. This seems the quickest way, I don't have to remove the vise then put it back and re tram it in. I don't have to fish around for clamps and parallels, just put my trusty old piece of RHS in the vise and clamp the plate to it. If I need a backstop I clamp a couple of blocks between the fixed jaw and the RHS. For an endstop I may ream a hole in the RHS and fit a dowel. The RHS is sacrificial but lasts for years. On the odd occasion I may take a light skim off the top of the sacrificial box section but very rarely.

Hi, Hope you dont mind my comments!! I'm surprised you've still got all your fingers! Please use a pointer of some sort, fingers make me go cold. By the way, I use turned buttons in the tee slots and clock over the two high points. Easy to make, turn them together and then part off, Best Regards Mike N

Awesome work. This is one of those projects that I find it hard to believe more people haven't done. I made a simpler version, using a piece of 1" wide, 1/4" thick precision ground bar stock. Drilled 3 clearance holes for 3/8-16 fasteners... The outer 2 are for bolting it to the table, the middle for the clamp for the vise. I made 2 clamps, one 1/4" shorter than the other, which rests on top of the fence, and is held down with the 3rd bolt. The fence is trammed parallel with the Y-axis of my mill. I use a "CNC-style" vise, which is flat on all sides. It has clamping slots along the long sides, and I machined additional clamping slots along the short sides, as well. This way, I can orient the vise in whatever direction I need, and know it's square without having to indicate it every time. I also machined clamping "ledges" on the base of my rotary table, so I can set that up in a similar fashion, again without having to indicate it in. The only issue is that the crank handle sticks out past the bottom and side faces, so it can only be oriented with the handle off the table. I plan on building a telescoping extension for the crank handle, so I can position the rotary table however I want, and just place the handle in a convenient spot. This setup, combined with my universal-head mill, allows an incredible amount of flexibility in setups.

Yes my Taiwanese turret mill has the three TEE slots unequally spaced e.g. 23.81 against 25.55mm apart - it only causes slight irritation but in this case it's useful to ensure that the fence goes on the table with the same orientation each time it is used! Personally I would have used a small file and scraper to make the item fit snugly - it doesn't need to slide so the fit can be tight and the final squaring up can be done in situ.

That’s a useful project !

great idea. came out super nice

I scratched my head about the T slot layout on my Taiwanese mill until I realized it was made for 12mm studs & metric T nuts. If you chk your layout w/ 12mm studs, not 12.7mm, (½ = 12.7), & 16mm for nut width, instead of 15.9mm, (0.625 = 15.9 mm), you might discover it's more symmetric than thought. I can't remember the dimension of metric T-nuts; I've got 2 metric T-bolts which came w/ the mill & a mixed Te-Co/? ½" (eBay) used set. I've been thinking about a fence as well, but I was considering a semi-perm mount on the back flange of the table; something I can placed a rotary table against, to the R of the vise. Still figurin', tho.

No, don't take more off!!! (around 19:00) Well, its situations like that where I am tempted to get out a blue sharpie & spot where its really touching, then maybe file or scrape it down to fit everywhere - maybe spotting in the slots holding it perpendicular with a machinist square you trust.. that's the way to really take up the whole evening, if not several... if you are not tramming it parallel to cross travel, probably best to have it bottom out on just one of the 6 side faces, in one direction, & tune that face so it sits as true as possible in the place you are most likely to use it on the mill table.. was also thinking, could make a longer key that sits in a slot in place of one of the projections (but cut to hang out below the table surface) that you fit to be perpendicular, & hold it in place in the corner with an angled screw (of course then the thing takes up more room on the shelf).. although wouldn't be able to put a holddown bolt into the slot that had the special key.. always more ideas... ok, now I better watch the rest, & see what you really do! Great gadget, & thanks for sharing this.

👍use a precision square off the table to the quill to get tram close then indicate. Saves a lot of time 🙂

Over the past several years l have designed a number of Tooling Items (1) designed to fit a couple of Precision Matthews milling machines. Amongst them are several types of Alignment Keys and Stops. One thing l would recommend for Alignment Keys is to have surfaces on each side of the portion that goes in the Tee Slot. The surface does not need to be very wide on the side the work will go against. The other side can be as wide as you want. As there is no real loading placed on the Alignment Key during operation it does not need the largest Tee Nut that fits in the slot. Also keep the overall height as short as possible. Additionally the side that work will be positioned against should be finish machined in situ. 1) Up and including Indexing Tables, Tilting Tables, Sine Tables, Adjustable Angle Fences with Vernier Scales, Table Stops, Tool Holders for doing Slotting Work.

I was thinking the T-Nuts would not lock up.. I have something similar, but lower, and it's an L shape. Turn it one way and it's just for setting it on X or Y, turn it the other way and it holds it in X and Y on the table so you get fully registered. But it does not have stud holes for mounting clamps..

I suggest that the middle key is redundant and it over constrained the part which led to everything needing to be remachined looser in the tee slots. Perhaps a central shallow slot accurately machined in the base could hold a much longer tenon that will align perfectly without tramming in. Clamp down with two outside tee nuts.

Not looking to come off as a know it all or a smart ass here. But have you ever looked closely at that spindle taper for the R8 collets ? I wonder if it is not cut to the proper taper causing your tooling to pull out? I only say this because my Taiwanese mill had some damage when i bought it new and it too was having issues holding the tooling and a far more experienced machinists caught that recommended I check mine. I did and he was right it was off by only .0006” after I re-ground it I haven’t had any issues with even the larger tooling pulling out. ( well at least when I remember to lock everything down properly 😂) But I just wanted to share my experience with you. Enjoyed the video man. Have a great day.

I'm not sure HOW intentional it was, perhaps it's just serendipitous, but basically every moment of this video is referencing and highlighting the Relativity of Precision. I'm choosing to believe this was your intent all along! Anybody obsessed with the myth of perfection, has clearly never attempted machining precision. Home hobby shops can pump out parts precise down to the nm (or beyond?), and industrial labs are capable of errors rendering theirs only useful as paperweights. When someone can spend a day or better dialing in precision, solar radiation and eddy currents in magnetic fields playing into measurement imprecision, and temperature of the work and measurement devices is measured in degrees Kelvin, how many people really just need to hear the word "Relax!"? We're on a relatively tiny marble, hurtling tens of thousands of kilometers/second through space, protected by a magnetic field, without which ambient and solar radiation would annihilate us all, sometimes it's nice to be reminded that all the precision we have is relative. "Ain't nothing, nor nobody, in this world "perfect". (I'm aware of the grammatical errors in this statement.)

Mill one side square. Stand the part up on the squared side. Run your endmill on top. Then grab the now parallel edges in the vice and finish the last two sides in one op. What the hell man

Robert I will not be cheeky in this comment and get myself in trouble ! Do you have Australia native plant in your backyard to they suit your climate. That is a great fixer your made it will help in many set-up. Kit from down under

Very nice work sir. Good tool