Making Square Link Chain

okay guys anybody that's been following my channel knows that I'm currently engaged in building one of these now I think today's project is going to be this little feature right here let's make the chain anybody can make round link chain but I think these rectangular links are just a little bit cooler so that's what I'm going to shoot for today get it shoot for no pun intended and this is a perfect opportunity to show you something that I've had in my toolbox for a while that I'm looking for a reason to show you and it would be these guys right here these were fabricated from half by one and a half low carbon ground stock if you've ever needed to have a precision blank that you don't feel like grinding well low carbon ground stock comes ground you can get it to size a little bit oversized whatever but I tell you it comes in real handy when you need something that's all matched now these are inserts for my vise jaw and it was real easy to make them just square them all up to the same size doesn't even have to be to the same size but have a common common surface that you can bank from squeeze it in another vise and put it in your regular milling vise at 45 degrees and run an end mill across it there you go now you have four matched little inserts for your vise and if you're going to be doing smaller stuff I'll put a smaller notch on the opposite side the way these works is you stick them in your vise and I'll show you this momentarily and you squeeze them like little v blocks two on this side two on this side and I'm going to pull this camera back so you see that and that just works so well in the vise it's just amazing the amount of access that this gives you to your part you can cut the top you can cut the back side front side you can make half rounds that are beyond Center that you couldn't hold normally in advice because naturally once you get beyond Center it pops out so let's take this in the mill modify it a little bit and we're going to show you exactly how that chains going to happen stick around this is the cross-section that I'm looking to cut and there's a reason for the round end so just bear with but that particular link size is what I want 180 by 160 it's twice as tall as it is wide I think it gives a good proportion and those are just the contact and move points from the material and using a 250 cutter these are my centers so let's take a look at how it's set up in the milk [Applause] and you can certainly see the advantage of having access to three sides of the part the only thing you need to do when you're done is just rotate it accordingly to get your final feature and in you go and since this is visual I'm going to put a vertical sharpie marker line right here and when it's time to rotate it I'm gonna turn it 180 degrees until that line is straight back up I'm gonna make my final cut let's stick this on the tripod make it happen all right the first thing we have to do is to locate the cutter against the material if you don't want to use an edge finder and I certainly don't because it's a meatball part I'm going to bring this end mill in until it makes contact with the edge of the material at that point raise your cutter up move in the radius of your cutter that puts the center of the cutter on the edge of the part and now move in the radius of apart and that puts the center of the cutter over the center of the part and at that point you can make all moves symmetrical about that value so let's start that and turn this thing into a rectangle see how fast that happens [Applause] that is age contact I'm going to move 125 to find the center of the cutter I was like refresher I'm going to move 156 to find the center of the material [Applause] this will be a client cut I like the finish of a client cut better [Applause] you are gonna climb cut on a manual mill snug the locks on your table so the cutter doesn't grab the workpiece [Applause] you [Applause] let's go to the back side of the same setting and come back [Applause] if you are concerned with deflection of your workpiece you can do one side or the other first stick a block in there because with a climb cut it is a rejection and it'll push if this gets real thin it'll push it up against your stop block and save you the hassle of having a part that varies between here here and here because as it gets to the center it's going to push away the cross section may increase let's do the top I need to take 76,000 [Applause] okay those of you with headphones on here comes a little bit of air that was for you very okay I'm going to take my visual alignment mark I have here on the end rotate the part 180 degrees take the same cut on the back side and I'm going to cover this up momentarily so these blocks don't lift when I rotate and I think that is close enough 76 as well off the top [Applause] okay I am going to here comes one more air blast this out of the way I hit that real hard it's gonna look like a snow storm with this Center being all filled up like that and I'd rather not do that watch the index mark I'm going to turn this piece 90 degrees or somewhere there about close enough is good enough boy that is small you can see the noise and apart from the lack of support at least I can I'll move that to the camera closer alright let's change the tools pop a hole in this okay the part has been rotated 90 degrees and I'm gonna pop a hole in this somewhere towards the other end [Music] matter of fact I think I'm going to go between the blocks stay in the full diameter of this material I know it's bouncy [Applause] and last but not least I'd like to put some detail down the center of this you'll see why that happens this is an O 60 diameter ball nose envel and I want to put a trough right down the wide side you [Applause] you [Applause] okay air blast warning here we go take a look here's the final product it is 85 160 tall sharp corners there is a no 60 wide ball nose trough down the center of that it's about 50 deep and right now I'm gonna take it over to the buffer and I'm going to buff the corners off of this make it round rounder alright guys this is my deburring wheel of choice for just about all materials this is a hard scotch brite fiber type wheel it is not very flexible this is the wheel that that does all the polishing after the fact if you want to blend out any kind of lines but if you want to cut your part down this is a great wheel to to use so since I can't hold this camera do this at the same time I'm just going to edge hit this on here at a 45 degree visual and then buff it on the pink wheel on the opposite side and that should give me what I want I just want those sharp edges to go away okay the edges have being rounded off smooth off a little bit off camera I now pop a center drill hole in this and maybe the lights going on for some of you but we're going to pop this in the lathe hold this in a collet put a support center out here and show you something pretty cool okay guys this is now setup in the late and I'm gonna use 20 gauge brass wire to do this I'm going to thread it through the cross hole that we put in the arbor in the first place turn the machine on incredibly slow and I'm going to let it boil around that rectangular cross section that we just formed in the mill now when you do this if you do this realize that this is not a good idea that if you're on an incredibly high speed on your lathe that that six foot worth of brass wire hanging out is a giant weed whacker and could do a considerable amount of damage so confirm that your machine is in the slowest possible speed and that there are no loops or hooks formed into the wire I've done this before so I know what to expect but please realize if you want to try this don't use a 6-foot piece of wire to start use a six inch piece of wire to start an experiment but I do have some experience with this so please be careful when you try it let's see what happens [Applause] my machine is set at 30 rpm [Applause] [Applause] thirty rpm it is it's gonna take a turn or two before this starts to track I hope it will and keep your coils nice and tight as they wind around that Arbor and your end product should be just what your hope to see so let's find out leather gloves would probably be a very good idea the more resistant you put on this wire the tighter those little coils are going to be you [Applause] I would say that's a win I really hope that stayed and focused the whole time I do not have a monitor to look at as this is happening what we've effectively just done the Arbor was the internal cross section of the link and wrapping the brass wire around it like that form the outside of the link the little trough that we put in this Arbor is going to be clearance for the nose of the little nippers that I'm going to use to separate these links and then I'm going to have to get a cup of coffee and sit for a while and bend them all together so let's get this thing out of here and unfortunately this is a sacrificial Arbor I am going to saw cut this off or right there this end chunk was just for support I'm sure that if you're going to do this on a regular basis that you could put a centre right in this rectangular piece but I didn't feel like doing that this morning so I'm not going to but I will not damage the arbor except for cutting that end off so I can use it again if I need to let's go over to the saw saw this thing off chop a few links off and show you what this will ultimately look like there is no doubt in my mind that when you cut these links the memory of this material the link is going to deform as it comes off if you want to avoid that gently tap the surface with soft mallet or put it in a vise or whatever but be careful how hard you squeeze it you don't want to transfer the shape of these links into this Arbor because then it's going to be a real dog to get off but I am going to do that I'm not going to waste anybody's time doing it I'll probably use the corner of the vise and just pinch it gently and then rotate it and pinch it gently again to establish a little bit harder corner than what I have here because I know this is going to open up when I cut these off so I'll do that and I'll cut a few off and put them together let's take a look okay I bumped the parts gently into vice gave it a little bit more of a flatter profile and I'm gonna go right down the middle with the snippers and hopefully these links fall off so see if I can look around the camera to do this with any kind of success and I got to look through a magnifier guy so I'm gonna come back to this after I've clipped these off I'll show you what I got okay I think you can see that that particular process yields a tremendous amount of links here and that's way more than I have the patience to put this together right now what I bet the few up and there you go so that will be the ornamental change for my cannon I think I would have liked a little bit thicker wire but this was all I could find at the time and maybe next time a little different cross-section maybe something with points on the end so that when you squeeze it it tracks a little bit better there you go that's how you make chain least that's how I make Cheney but you got a better idea or a quicker process by all means make a video I'd love to see it thanks for watching hope you enjoyed it take care you

Channel: Joe Pieczynski

Views: 333,385

Rating: 4.5488153 out of 5

Keywords: joe Pie, joe pieczynski, advanced innovations, advanced innovations llc, shop tricks, shop hacks, machine shop, shop videos, machining, how to machine, making chain, fabricating chain, how to make chain, chain links, rectangular chain, ornamental chain, jewelry, miniature cannons, brass cannons, scale model cannons, brass chain

Id: BjM4AZXAZo8

Length: 19min 14sec (1154 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 25 2018