OTTAWA Area - Flat Taper in Mild Steel Plate

[ConnorBe]

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

 

[Susquatch]

Be patient. Lots of guys in the a Ottawa area that could do that for you.

If nobody there chimes in, you might have to mail it out a bit further.

 

[SightlessSeer]

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.

 

[ConnorBe]

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.

 

[David]

There's a laser cutting company in Toronto. Keep your money in Canada

 

[Dan Dubeau]

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.....

 

[ConnorBe]

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.

 

[slow-poke]

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?

 

[ConnorBe]

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.

 

[slow-poke]

I have cnc capability so if the shim started with tabs to allow it to be held down I could just program in the change in Z, for example G1 X 6.7 Z -0.075 and use a face mill, would require several light passes with a face mill. If not in a hurry I could possibly do one pair but not interested in doing a bunch. I have a bunch of projects on the go so probably better to look for someone with more available time.

 

[ConnorBe]

I have cnc capability so if the shim started with tabs to allow it to be held down I could just program in the change in Z, for example G1 X 6.7 Z -0.075 and use a face mill, would require several light passes with a face mill. If not in a hurry I could possibly do one pair but not interested in doing a bunch. I have a bunch of projects on the go so probably better to look for someone with more available time.

Thanks! Will see if i get lucky with another person, but if all else fails I'll circle back.

I forgot to add in the original post, but for all reading this is paid work $$

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Now that I know the purpose and associated acceptable tolerance. Another way would be add some hold down tabs, and close in that bottom section and tabs to actually make it machinable. Then you could simply screw it down to a fixture plate and tilt it on the angle via sine plate. once you walk around the face and cut your angle, avoiding the hold down tabs, then just cut them off by hand. Sometimes adding a bit of extra material saves you so much headache and frustration in the end. All the extra tabs could simply be cut off with a hacksaw, or zip wheel and dressed with a file. Have those thin features tied together will make it MUCH more machinable.

Something like that perhaps. Maybe that tab on the left could be rotated to be on the bottom, and the one on the right to the top.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Or this

 

[ConnorBe]

Now that I know the purpose and associated acceptable tolerance. Another way would be add some hold down tabs, and close in that bottom section and tabs to actually make it machinable. Then you could simply screw it down to a fixture plate and tilt it on the angle via sine plate. once you walk around the face and cut your angle, avoiding the hold down tabs, then just cut them off by hand. Sometimes adding a bit of extra material saves you so much headache and frustration in the end. All the extra tabs could simply be cut off with a hacksaw, or zip wheel and dressed with a file. Have those thin features tied together will make it MUCH more machinable.

View attachment 64674View attachment 64674

Something like that perhaps. Maybe that tab on the left could be rotated to be on the bottom, and the one on the right to the top.

Thanks Dan, I can 100% add tabs/structure like that wherever the machine operators specifies to make the job easy. Adding as you suggested is no extra cost and probably 20 minutes of work in CAD.