Terry, one of your earlier tool hangers inspired me. I finally added on an additional side case onto my tool chest to store the overflow that had been creeping onto open shelves over the years (unthinkable, I know!) and I needed a good place to hang some of the longer tools like pry bars, breaker bars, etc. Well the story starts a couple months ago when this followed me home:
It took a while as it was filthy and needed some common wear items replaced but it is now in it's final home and basically working fine (X power feed still needs some work but it manages OK for now) plus I needed to rig up a VFD for it. So I had some of this leftover 14ga 304SS from my screen porch railings that I had brake bent already. It is way too stiff for me to bend with anything I have in the shop at the present time. So I took a scrap of that, put it in the vise with some scrap lumber behind it as sacrificial clamping block and went at it. I added more screws to hold each "tongue" after I took this photo:
Well, I am an idiot, not a machinist, so I took the ~5/8" bit plunged it in at the root of the cutout and then milled back out to the free edge at the front. That worked fine for a couple slots but the bit got harder to plunge after 2 holes, and 3 was harder, 4 was brutal and 5 made the SS glow red and would not go through
304 SS is pretty Fargin' hard to mill, as apparently everyone knows but like I said, I'm an idiot not a machinist
. I went from right to left in this photo and on #5 started milling in from the free end as it was no longer plunging at all. The side of the bit was OK farther up from the end so I was able to finish off that way. Probably should have started off that way (ref: previous idiot comment...):
It is kinda funny seeing how the burn increases right to left until I re-calibrated my method...
Here is what I did to the bit (oopsie! good thing I got it cheap!)
Cont...
