Why would ya?

 

Well, at this end of the planet landing Splitjaws works out around $4 ea local currency.  Ouch!  Thought I’d have a go at making some, so...

 

 3.6m of 8mm square brass stock stock, cut to length for the milling machine at work 

  

Dovetail milled into each piece, then pairs matched for drilling.

   

 
Holes drilled at 10mm centres, 1 side tapped at M3, 20mm stainless cap screws.

 

Then cut to size with 4” angle grinder and 0.6mm disc.

 

 

I also cut some doubles for bending rail with the TrainLi.

  

 

Pretty happy with the result.  Material costs were $106 and I got 86 clamps so that works out about 1.25 each.    

 

Most problems were with the drill wandering in the material and the holes ending up so far off centre that they couldn’t be used. Combo of small drill and cheap Chinese drill press.   

 

Cheers

Neil

 

Thanks guys, it was fun working out how to make a bunch of them cost effectively and get them to work.

Barry,

The $4 cost is just currency conversion and freight, our dollar is rapidly becoming the South Pacific Peso!

I spent a bit of time looking at import taxes when we were talking about bringing in the TrainLi. Officially NZ now has no import taxes except..  (yep, there’s always those) when “the same items are produced in New Zealand”.  In that case it can only attract a maximum 7% tax.  The for once helpful person on the end of the phone said add 7% to everything anyway and that’s the most you’ll get stung for.  Luckily we make no LS products here.

Jerry,

Except perhaps these now… Heh heh.  Seriously though these are a bit “homemade”.  I posted a photo of one of the better ones of course.  Not quite production quality and quite a bit of variation from one to the next.  Next time maybe.

JJ,

Saw your Q posted but I have no gear at home - I used the mill at work.  We have a machine shop next to the office for our motor rewinding division and luckily I get on well with the workshop manager. 

I took a couple of cellphone photos as I was doing it, sorry about the quality but here’s something to give you an idea.  The main bed is 4’ long, vice jaws around 200mm – that’s the length I cut the stock to so it was supported all the time while cutting.  I made a couple of steel standoffs to position the stock to the same height each time.  Vice jaws were set parallel with a dial guage to get consistent cutting depth along the length.  The dovetail cutter is 18mm but anything bigger than 3 -4 mm will do.  A couple of lathes are in the background.

CNC cutter eh?  Nice – I’m going sit in the corner and get jealous.

Neil