A fine piece of equipment it is, to be sure. Strong and rigid, it's ready for a lifetime of service.
Import Cutoff Tool Holder Improvement
© Frank Ford 2006; Photos by FF
Here's my Aloris cutoff tool holder:
A fine piece of equipment it is, to be sure. Strong and rigid, it's
ready for a lifetime of service.
But I wanted a couple more so I could have them all loaded with different
thickness parting blades. I looked around and the best price I could
find for another new Aloris holder was $79.95, or for significantly less than
that I could get two of these Chinese clones:
It's generally well built, but if you look closely, you'll see that the wedge
is smaller, and the blade channel is wider, leaving a bit less support at the
bottom. What's
not obvious in the photo is that the Aloris holds the "T" style blade
vertically because the back side of slot is milled at the appropriate angle,
where the import version has a slot of uniform depth, making it nearly impossible
to get the blade to stand up straight. It's critical to have a cutoff tool
aligned properly!
My task was clear enough - correct the slot to accomodate the blades with a "T" cross section.
It seemed a likely enough job for my little Rusnok mill, so I set up my vise,
indicating the bottom of the milled slot parallel to the table travel:
I milled a .030" deep slot with a 3/16 end mill right
at the upper edge of the blade slot in the holder:
The result was a nice bit of relief for the upper section of the blade:
Now, my new holders have no problem standing the blade up straight:
On the left, we have one
of my modified imports with its upper relief channel and on the right, the
original Aloris with its angled slot.