last of frame fixture pictures

Delmar and I finished up the frame welding fixture this last week. Here is a shot of a go no go gauge that we made because we didn't have a 1- 14 tap or bolt to check our threads with.

Thread milling in process

Neck fixture pieces coming together. The top plate has a 1"14 threaded hole in it. We didn't have a tap so, Delmar showed me how to thread mill on a haas. Thread milling is really cool. You use a cutter that is cut at 30 degrees and circular interpolate around the hole while the spindle goes down.

This is what the neck stem in raw material form? It is made out of 12l14 which is commonly referred to as screw stock.

Here is a right side view of the neck holding

This is the bottom plate for the neck holding apparatus. We put in a row of 3/8 16 tapped holes for adjust ability when we set it up for the 25, 28 or 30 degree neck angles to take up the x movement. The neck stem and adjusting cones take up the z play.

With the neck fixture finished we moved onto the table legs. So we got out a blank piece of paper.

Then we got distracted and went out and shot guns. This gun was very neat, it has a bayonet.

Here are the back legs for the fixture installed and ready to go. The wheels are cool, they were made in the USA.

There is nothing worse than a rocky table, chair or frame fixture, so we applied some ancient tractor technology and built this pivot point so that the front legs will move and the table will always be level.

Here it is installed. The front legs have quite a bit of travel. I think that if we wanted to, we could weld frames together on the side of a mountain with out the fixture rocking.

here it is in all of its glory. It was a lot more work than anyone anticipated, but will end up saving hundreds of hours over the course of my life. We had a good system for re tubing frames before, but it was a four step process. Hopefully this fixture will cut it down to a two step process. The hardest part of the whole job will still be frame and forging prep...

We got it unloaded and the fixture looks monstrous in our shop. I think it is because of the lower ceiling height.

Here is a picture of miss Brittney on the fixture for scale.