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OTTAWA Area - Flat Taper in Mild Steel Plate

ConnorBe

Brand New Member
Anyone in here have/know someone with a milling machine in the Ottawa area that can give me a hand?

Looking to have a flat taper cut in these alignment shims. Varying orientations/tapers for a full set. Not precision work. Not particularly time sensitive.

Will come laser cut as you see drawn in ~3mm mild steel.

Work holding via a fixture plate with bolts (maybe super glue on the edges if needed). I can dimension it for T-slot table/ huge vise, or whatever you want really. Work holding easily changed.

If interested please reach out! Thanks
 

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Is there a reason that you can't laser cut it after milling the taper? Seems to me like you've got a whole lot of not particularly well supported details on that part after it's lasered out. If you can laser cut it after tapering it might make the milling setup a lot easier.
 
Is there a reason that you can't laser cut it after milling the taper? Seems to me like you've got a whole lot of not particularly well supported details on that part. If you can laser cut it after might make the milling setup a lot easier.
Outsourcing the cutting to Send Cut Send. Only $3 per unit. I agree that would be ideal though.
 
https://www.cutmyparts.ca/

And

https://www.readysetcut.ca/

Are both Ontario based services like send cut send. Cheaper too without cross border stuff, and exchange rates.

As for the taper that is going to be fun. I would find someone with an autofeed surface grinder and sine vice with flood coolant. I wouldn't really consider doing it another way. Would be a relatively easy job with that setup though. Would just take a while, which is why I mentioned an automatic grinder.....
 
https://www.cutmyparts.ca/

And

https://www.readysetcut.ca/

Are both Ontario based services like send cut send. Cheaper too without cross border stuff, and exchange rates.

As for the taper that is going to be fun. I would find someone with an autofeed surface grinder and sine vice with flood coolant. I wouldn't really consider doing it another way. Would be a relatively easy job with that setup though. Would just take a while, which is why I mentioned an automatic grinder.....
Thanks! I'll look into those, though I've looked at them before in passing and their mild steel material selection was not comparable to Send Cut Send. Maybe things have changed now.

I thought about that exact surface grinder setup too! But taking 1mm - 1.5mm off that route would take all day. Though if someone in here has that setup I'm definitely up for it.

Doing a high feed and speed on small endmill with super shallow cut should work too if we can hold down the small areas. Again to any interested users out there, I can add support tabs/add structure anywhere on the model to reduce the hassle factor, just more for me to cut off in post processing.

Attached is what the final product needs to be, any additional tabs which i can subsequently cut off is fair game.

If anyone wants to quote me on having these cut out via cnc milling I'd also be interested, the only thing that changes is the required taper/direction. Shim profile stays the same with exception of mirroring the part for left and right sides.
 

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Is that 169mm?

How much do you want shaved off?

Sounds like the taper is not a simple taper, but taper in more than one direction?

What accuracy do you need?
 
Is that 169mm?

How much do you want shaved off?

Sounds like the taper is not a simple taper, but taper in more than one direction?

What accuracy do you need?
Hi! Yes sorry should have specified - mm's

They're camber or toe shims, one taper direction per shim (only either left to right, or top to bottom). No compound tapers or anything fancy. I was thinking the fixture plate could be shimmed off the milling table to achieve the desired taper, but maybe there are smarter ways.

The maximum I would want shaved off is 1.9mm from a 3mm thick piece, with the top of the shim being the thin end.

The accuracy probably depends on how well the part can be held? If accuracy could be within .10mm I would be thrilled, but even +/-.25mm i'd be happy. It's a shim bolted between two machined surfaces, so as long as it can be fairly flat.

Would start with a couple pairs to figure things out, but I would probably want 16 - 20 shims total with each pair (left and right side) of shims being a different taper.

It's for my ruined grocery-getter. Once out of the testing phase, possibly could do a very small production run of 10 or so sets of 20 shims, but will see.
 

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