QCTP Tool holder

[Geoff]

As many of you have seen, I made a 60 Deg. Dovetail cutter and the reason I made it was to make some QCTP holders. I'm just about finished my first one, which was a prototype and then i'm going to batch out a bunch. I'm very please with how this is turning out..... I made this one to hold 1" turning tools as the stock BXA tool holder only support 5/8" tools. I have a few 1" carbide insert tool holder that I picked in some too lots that I purchased so now I can use them without having to mill down the shanks to 5/8". I made a knurled height adjustment dial that is much more substantial than what is included on the stock holders. It has a much nicer feel. It rides on a 3/8 -24 piece of threaded stock.

Below are a few pics. Pretty much all that I left are the set screws. They are 3/8 - 16 and I didn't have anything on hand. I'll visit a bolt store on Tuesday and get this project finished.

 

[PeterT]

Nice. Do you have a plan on blackening/surface protection?

 

[Geoff]

I'm not sure, I haven't thought about it. I have never done any blackening but maybe this would be a good opportunity to learn the technique.

 

[Tom Kitta]

You can buy a solution to easily blacken all metal - you just dip your stuff in.

How high from the compound is your center? Mine is 29mm. So If I used 1 inch tool bits I would only have 4mm of metal under the bit. I could "hang" the tool bit off the compound unsupported underneath by it but that feels kind of flimsy. The 3/4 inch idea seems better as 19mm bits would still give me 10mm of metal under the bit.

When I get my mill going I probably get 3-5 new holders done in a single pass - it doesn't seem like I would ever need more.

 

[PeterT]

4mm sounds pretty skinny to me. It would be better to have more meat on the lower ledge me thinks. The downward cutting pressure of the bit is going to want to shear that corner and especially with any interrupted cutting. Even tightening the set screws down will add base stress to the same corner area. I know shaving down oversized shanks is not appealing, but something with less height would be a better solution Hey, that's what AliExpress tools are for - nice cheap tooling & the metal is probably easily machineable too! ps - some guys only mill off a rectangle portion of the shank to fit their tool block, say .5 wide x 0.1 deep leaving the rest of tool shank section intact if its like 1x1.

I'm using the cold dip blackening stuff. It's ok I guess, not super. That's why I was asking the question. There are more concentrated solutions (Caswell) & then you get into the hot dipping & nastier chemicals which seem better but more involved.