"Ignoramus9931" wrote in message
...
On 2008-05-29, JR North wrote:
What the others said about tramming, flycutter instead of end mill, hand
sanding the finish, etc. Also you should have this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=93981

I kind of like this sander a lot because it is so small. I have a hand
held electric sander also. All good ideas.

In a few days I will be similarly refurbishing a 4" vise (this one was
a 5").

i

In a corner somewhere. Very useful for surface finishing on a WIDE range
of stuff.
JR
Dweller in the cellar


Ignoramus9931 wrote:
Related to my yesterday's vise refurbishing project, where I milled a
little thin layer off the anvil to make it look smooth. I used a 5/8"
carbide endmill. I made multiple passes, each time removing a "strip"
approximately 1/2" wide.

While the result is perfectly acceptable for a vise anvil, it was
nothing to brag about as far as finish quality is concerned.

Here's one revealing pictu

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/misc...-Vise-2182.jpg

The ridges you see, are visually exaggerated by the fact that some
passes fere from left to right and some were from right to left. They
look bigger than they are because of this. In reality they are not
really that high.

So. What would you do, to achieve a decent looking flat finish,
without a surface grinder or anything of the sort.



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It doesn't appear that you're looking for a mechanically flat surface here,
only one that *looks* flat, right? Because getting a truly flat surface with
hand sanding or files is a specialty that requires some understanding. And
getting a truly flat surface with a belt sander is nearly impossible. Look
at the sole of a new Stanley plane, and take a good straightedge with you to
check it, and you'll see that they're a swaybacked mess. They're
"abrasive-belt machined." Right. g

But filing or hand-sanding can do a credible job if you use your head. For
the initial flattening on my chunk of railroad track, which I try to keep
flat for whacking on odds and ends with a hammer, I used an angle-head
grinder and a straight edge. Then I draw-filed it. Then I struck it (filed
straight along the length.) Then I cross-filed it, then struck it
diagonally. All of this filing took less than five minutes. It's pretty
darned flat.

This is the same method I have used in the past for flattening cylinder
heads on lawnmowers, BTW. And don't tell anyone, but I also used it to
flatten the manifold faces on the aluminum heads of a Mitsubishi V6 motor. I
took them to a machine shop and they said it was better than anything they
could do with machine tools. g

Once you get it flat, you can use abrasive sanding to make it smooth. But
that's smooth, not flat.

You probably know all this but just in case...

--
Ed Huntress