Harbor Freight cut out tool?

[Brian]

I have the orange cutout tool, however I am actually not using the stock mounts as they were too narrow. I just drew the stock spindle mounts up adding about 1/4" in the middle as it was the easiest spindle mount to make at the time.

[tra]

I bought the cutout tool just to fart around with and decided to mod it a bit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brian]

I left mine in one piece just in case there is a warranty issue. I need to pull my shapeoko out of its cabinet and set it back up for some projects. Its hard to justify using smaller machines when you have a 5x12 router with a 12 tool changer that can plow through aluminium at 200IPM. Although that router is at my work and sometimes I don't want to stay there any later than i have to.

[tra]

I got the spindle mounted, but haven't given it a test run yet. I bought hose clamps, cut them, and used 16mm M5 screws to mount them. It seems to hold really tight, but we'll see. The "Shapeoko 2" drawing has missing parts because that MDF wasn't screwed down and I was pressing on it while the job was running.

http://i.imgur.com/TKe0BXP.jpg

[tra]

Welp...my cutout tool doesn't spin true...lots of wobble.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WillAdams]

Unfortunately, Harbor Freight tools tend to be luck-of-the-draw in terms of quality/runout.

Might be that you could tighten it up by replacing and/or shimming the bearing --- this is discussed here: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To- ... nd-Dremel/ --- see also http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic ... 481#p22481

I've always thought that it should be possible to make up a housing which would be more compact and accurate --- perhaps using the basis here? http://www.buildlog.net/blog/2011/09/ne ... r-spindle/

Further discussion here: http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3173