Recommended Super Spacer for Barrel Fluting?

M

Matt in Va

Guest
Gentlemen,
I am looking for a recommendation on a good quality Super Spacer and tailstock to use on my new Bridgeport/Hardinge Series 1 for barrel fluting. Looking for value. Can't swing a Hermann Schmidt, however, I can't aide junk. $2K and below are doable...

I would ask for the source for the mid barrel support that Mr. Tooley has in his pictures, however, I have a sneaking suspicion he made that...;-) Full of feathers or available on the market?

Thank you, Matt Garrett
757-581-6270
 
Look for an "index head" on Ebay, and you'll get a nice used one for $250-$400, less if you shop a while.

When I fluted barrels, I made a sleeve that fit the barrel (tapered on the inside to fit) and put THAT in the index head and put flats on it. Then, sitting the barrel down on the mill bed, and using appropriate spacers below, set up the part in the mill so that I could run a flute in a straight line. Then, with clamps, put a block of steel behind the barrel so it was the "mid barrel support". Rotate for every flat I put on the sleeve and viola. I never actually used a tailstock or index head (super spacer) on the actual fluting operation.

More than one way to skin a cat.
 
Matt in Va said:
Gentlemen,
I am looking for a recommendation on a good quality Super Spacer and tailstock to use on my new Bridgeport/Hardinge Series 1 for barrel fluting. Looking for value. Can't swing a Hermann Schmidt, however, I can't aide junk. $2K and below are doable...

I would ask for the source for the mid barrel support that Mr. Tooley has in his pictures, however, I have a sneaking suspicion he made that...;-) Full of feathers or available on the market?

Thank you, Matt Garrett
757-581-6270
Click to expand...

had a couple Nikens in the past, that had lathe chucks mounted on a face plate. Very accurate, and could be used in a vertical or horizontal position. Enco used to sell a clone of them as well as the tail stock. As for the center support, if you do an odd number of flutes you will always have a smooth part at the bottom. The hard part will be supporting the barrel on the sides in the middle. That could probably be done with a clamping setup that has rotating jaws. The real problem with this setup on a Bridgeport is table flex. Bridgeport tables tend to flex all over the place in non supported areas (that's why the saddle wears so fast). Might be a good idea to build a fixture plate out of 1.5" thick aluminum that would be the length of the table, and then mount everything to the plate (with the plate bolted down solid to the table). You could also do the same with a 1" thick piece of CRS
gary
 
I use a Vertex 6" spacer made in Taiwan. It either came from Enco or MSC, don't remember which, but probably doesn't make much difference as I've ordered from Enco and received MSC marked boxes. The spacer setup and the aluminum plate it's sitting on cost more than the milling machine. My setup is a little different in that I flute barrels on a Brown & Sharpe horizontal mill. For a center support, I just use a milling machine vise with a layer of leather between the jaws and the barrel. The vise weighs around 40 pounds and is held only by gravity.
fluting.jpg
The aluminum plate on the bottom is clamped to the milling machine table. The spacer and tail stock are bolted to the aluminum plate. The aluminum plate can be raised or lowered on the left side to match whatever taper you want the flutes to follow.
 
Mike Bryant said:
I use a Vertex 6" spacer made in Taiwan. It either came from Enco or MSC, don't remember which, but probably doesn't make much difference as I've ordered from Enco and received MSC marked boxes. The spacer setup and the aluminum plate it's sitting on cost more than the milling machine. My setup is a little different in that I flute barrels on a Brown & Sharpe horizontal mill. For a center support, I just use a milling machine vise with a layer of leather between the jaws and the barrel. The vise weighs around 40 pounds and is held only by gravity.
fluting.jpg
The aluminum plate on the bottom is clamped to the milling machine table. The spacer and tail stock are bolted to the aluminum plate. The aluminum plate can be raised or lowered on the left side to match whatever taper you want the flutes to follow.
Click to expand...

that's the rotary table I was refering to. Pretty much a Niken clone all the way thru. The Niken is a little better quality, but really dosn't matter much as long as you index in the same direction all the time. I did have to rescrape the two surfaces that the unit locates on for a buddy who bought one from Enco. One thing to be carefull with on the clones is that they don't seal up very well, and about once a year need to be cleaned up on the inside if you use a lot of coolant on them. We fixed that problem on Marc's by charging the inside of it with 4psi of air pressure.
gary
 
Greetings,
Watch for a sale at MSC / J&L and gather up yourself a YUSA Super Spacer. It will come with several masking plates, a very, very good chuck and extremely good accuracy. You can make all of the rest of the stuff you need to index and cut the barrel.

Nic.
 
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