Make your own keeper bars -- question or two

[Possum]

harbor freight....

HB has the cheapest micro-mill, I think for making small stuff like keepers it would be adequate. I'm going to go look at one tomorrow. I had a machinist who would quote on making keepers without drilling but he vanished, they just aren't interested in small jobs at all....

[SkinnyWire]

Depends on what you want to do. One can spend from $300 to $300,000.

Hence the "without breaking the bank" comment. No worries. I've got a couple in mind.

[corduroyew]

I thought that by definition 1018 was cold rolled and if you hot roll it then what you have is A36. So when guys that are making your own keepers say you are using hot rolled 1018, are you really using A36? Or are you using something else?

[Spence]

I didn't say it was 1018. That's Possum's thang.

[Possum]

1018

I never said it was 1018 either. All I know is hot rolled material has very sloppy specs, the alloy mix can be a wide variation on mix, it could be pretty high carbon or low, 1018 is a specific mix, so maybe you're right. A36 physical dimensions are also sloppy as hot rolled is usually. 1018 is just a very common alloy available easily....

[corduroyew]

So if I used A36 would I get similar results as far as tone? Until now I've been using 60x3 1018 flat that I've been cutting down. I've got a large industrial bandsaw so getting it straight hasn't been a problem. The problem is that 1018 costs about 4 times as much as A36. If I order A36 I have to do so in a large quantity if I want a reasonable price and don't want to mess with it if it's not going to sound ok.

What I'm getting at with all that is, will A36 sound like 1018? Can I stop forking out the extra money? Or is there some other type of hot rolled material that is a bit more consistent than A36?

[Spence]

Experiment old chap. Spend those wasted hours on Mid Wales winter evenings out in the workshop trying out different things.

[corduroyew]

I knew that would be what you said. I don't have a problem with experimenting but after spending 1K on wire and 2K on immigration paperwork in the last month I'm skint. I know 1018 works and works well so I guess for now I'll keep using it. I was just hoping that if there was a cheaper option someone would through me a bone on this one. I guess I know where my extra pennies are going over the next little while...

[Possum]

........

No, you didn't read my post, A36 can be anything from 1018 to 1040 something, 1018 you know what you're getting A36 you don't. If you're getting good results from a batch of A36 thats fine but the next batch that comes in can be completely different unless you get a spec sheet of whats in that particular batch.

[corduroyew]

Oh, Ok. Thanks.

[Possum]

....

sure, it was news to me, I just learned this stuff myself. The material I got is hot rolled but came with a materials analysis so I know whats in it. I looked up the difference between hot and cold rolled and thats what I learned....

[Spence]

I knew that would be what you said. I don't have a problem with experimenting but after spending 1K on wire and 2K on immigration paperwork in the last month I'm skint. I know 1018 works and works well so I guess for now I'll keep using it. I was just hoping that if there was a cheaper option someone would through me a bone on this one. I guess I know where my extra pennies are going over the next little while...

Look, I wasn't being a twat but perhaps I should expand. If you're skint you can't afford to waste much in experimenting and that's the time to do things. Use what you have but see if there's something you can do to make it better.

[corduroyew]

^I wasn't trying to insinuate anything with that Spence. None of us can afford to just give away all of our methods and secrets because we all need to have a product that the other guys don't have. From reading this thread I found that there may be a cheaper option than what I was doing. I was just trying to gain a bit of info before I went and spent money on parts that may or may not work. At the same time I know that the exact material used for a keeper bar can change tone a lot so expecting anybody to just tell me what they use would really be a lot to ask which is why I expected to get an answer like do some R and D. Experimenting is never a waist of money as far as I'm concerned, but sometimes I have more laying around to spend on experimentation than others.

[David King]

The time consuming part of making keepers is threading the holes. You'll probably want a tapping fixture like a tapmatic X30, these list at $400 so try to get lucky on ebay, I've seen them go for under $100. Make sure you get one with the Jacobs tapered tap collet thingy or you'll be out an extra $40 and 2 weeks waiting for that bit to arrive.

You'll want to use coated, spiral point taps. Both MSC and Enco are selling Cleveland brand coated taps on deep discount right now. 10-24 is PN AE308-0108 at Enco. I forget what size a slug is...

You might be better off making the keepers on a drill press assuming you can get the steel in the correct dimension. Just make up a drilling jig to get the holes where you want them. You probably can't fit the X30 onto a micro mill, it's too tall. If you can slow the spindle down to 120 rpm you can tap manually on the mill using the forward/reverse switch to jog the tap up and down. Don't forget the tapping fluid.
Sorry if this info is redundant.

[Spence]

Keepers have clearance holes but thanks for the engineering info David.