Thread: T-Slot nuts for Hercus milling attachment

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

It's dead easy to turn down some 5/8" square bar and cut a thread.

Hi Bob,
that sounds like the go- no milling required. Any particular grade of steel you recommend?

pipeclay,
yes I bought it off EBay.

Chris

I can get 16mm square bar in 1020 or S1214. Does anyone know which is better for bolts?

1020 will be fine,all the compound tee nuts and cross slide tee nuts I make are out of 1020.

Ok thanks, I'll grab some 1020.

Something along the lines of these might work

MYFORD LATHE TEE NUTS / VERTICAL SLIDE / CROSS SLIDE ML7 SUPER 7 ML10 | eBay

Thanks Mike, but I bought a length of 16x16 1020 today, so I'm going to have a crack at making some 3/8" T-bolts over the weekend.

They're not very hard to make

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/ne...ml#post1273783

Nice. Now I'm motivated!

Made a couple of bolts this arvo. They came out pretty well. I'll make some more tomorrow while I'm on a roll.

They look sweet!

As far as milling on the lathe and the ER40 collet goes, I'd have to say that it will hold the cutter more rigidly than the other options mentioned as it will keep the cutter closer to the bearings. The further away, the more any bearing movement gets multiplied.

I briefly tried a bit of milling today with a P&N 4 flute end mill held in the 3 jaw chuck. I got a bit ambitious with the depth of cut and the end mill walked out of the chuck about 2mm over the length of the cut. Hopefully you are right Ewan and the ER40 will overcome this problem. I ordered an ER40 collet chuck on eBay yesterday.

You will need to make a drawbar for that. You did order one with a thread for a drawbar right?

Yes Bryan, it has a 16mm thread for the drawbar.