Make your own keeper bars -- question or two

[David King]

OK, I've never made a guitar pickup so I'm just guessing about how they work on the inside. The base plate gets threaded so just drilling the holes to fit the 5-40 filister heads.

Again Enco sells Thunderbit 135º split point screw machine stub drills for $1.09 ea in packs of 12. 3/16" dia. PN. AE240-6915
13/64" AE240-6916 $1.19
7/32" AE240-6917 $1.39

No sharpening needed, just chuck them out.

The problem I see with the small mills is that they are too short to hold a decent drill chuck and a decent vise. I'd look for a larger square column bench mill like a RongFu 45. That will keep you happy for many years of inventing. For the same price I got a used Bridgeport but it takes a lot of room and a solid floor not to mention a crane to move it.

[frank.clarke]

Better than drilling and sanding is the work in an x-y vise, and a Dremel with cutoff attachment in a drill stand/vise. A mill is obviously better than the Dremel.

[Joe Gwinn]

What you really want is a horizontal mill with gang saws

If we are really into production here, the industrial way to cut 0.125" mild steel sheet stock into strips suitable for keeper bars is a small (by industrial standards) horizontal mill with an arbor loaded with slotting saws and spacer rings in alternation, the thickness of the rings being the width to which the sheet will be cut. Each sweep of the gang saw will produce multiple strips, and the sides of those strips will be very smooth and clean, equivalent to cleanup with a mill.

The now slitted stock is subsequently rotated 90 degrees and cut to length with a different gang saw in the same horizontal mill.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nichols-Horizont...ayphotohosting

This one weighs ~800 pounds.

[SkinnyWire]

OK, I've never made a guitar pickup so I'm just guessing about how they work on the inside. The base plate gets threaded so just drilling the holes to fit the 5-40 filister heads.

Again Enco sells Thunderbit 135º split point screw machine stub drills for $1.09 ea in packs of 12. 3/16" dia. PN. AE240-6915
13/64" AE240-6916 $1.19
7/32" AE240-6917 $1.39

No sharpening needed, just chuck them out.

The problem I see with the small mills is that they are too short to hold a decent drill chuck and a decent vise. I'd look for a larger square column bench mill like a RongFu 45. That will keep you happy for many years of inventing. For the same price I got a used Bridgeport but it takes a lot of room and a solid floor not to mention a crane to move it.

This is handy info. I've been looking for something like those stub drills. Must have missed that in previous posts. Aside from having a really cool name, the RongFu looks pretty nice. Apparently, there are some "clones" of that mill that run about 1/2-1/3 the price and weigh about 1/2 as much. Might be the ticket for some slightly more than casual milling at home?

[David King]

I just got an email from Enco to this effect
"This week, save an extra 10% on your web order at use-enco.com! There's no fine print to consider. Just buy your tools and machines at use-enco.com and enter promo code WB288 on the shopping cart page before you click checkout....you'll save an extra 10% on your entire order!

Act fast! This exclusive discount offer expires at 5:00 p.m. EST, this Friday, February 22, 2008."

Combine that with their monthly free shipping on over $50 orders and you've got yer-self a bargain
"Just enter WEBPF8 in the promo code box on the shopping cart page"

Not sure if that works out together...

[David Schwab]

HF

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.

So... did you go look, and how was it?

We don't have any HF stores by me.... I've been eyeing that mill as well.