Inventor beginners project

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

If it fits your budget, keyway broaches can be made on a mill. If you have access to a lathe, you can make hex broaches. While not complex from a CAD standpoint, they can be immensely helpful during the build season.

Do you have any links on this? Have you made your own broaches? This sounds interesting.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Do you have any links on this? Have you made your own broaches? This sounds interesting.

Haven't made one myself, but I used a keyway broach somebody made in our shop the other day. They basically ground the shape on a blank of tool steel, hardened it with a torch and oil quenching, then sharpened it with a grindstone.

This video shows a square broach being made on a lathe, and it looks like it could easily be done with steel hex shaft. This is the method I think might be most suitable for FRC teams, and I'd be really excited if someone with access to a lathe could try it out and see how it goes (hint hint, nudge nudge).

This video shows a keyway broach being made on a mill. Seems pretty quick and easy if you can get the materials. Not sure if it's as high a quality though.

This one shows a hex broach being made out of a round piece of high speed steel with a surface grinder. I'm not as big a fan of this one. It requires a spin indexer and a surface grinder to turn the round high speed steel into hex. Also, the end design only has two steps, so two cutting surfaces are removing all the material. It obviously worked for the purpose it was intended for, but I think that it wouldn't hold up well for FRC purposes.