Tip 40—Fly cutting chip container/Charles Dukes

 

A simple chip guard can be made from a large plastic soft drink bottle.

When using a fly cutter, chips get thrown everywhere including at the operator. I devised a very simple method of contain those chips. Take a clear 2 liter soda bottle, remove the label and cut off the top and bottom so that you end up with a straight cylinder. Slit the cylinder down the side. The slit cylinder is opened up and fitted around the work and the headstock. The bottom of the cylinder rests on the table and will allow the table to move along under the bottom of the cylinder. The soda bottle cylinder will contain almost all of the flying chips. Some will escape out the top, so eyewear is still definitely needed, but you will not have chips all over the place.

I suppose you could leave part of the curved portion of the soda bottle intact for better chip containment if there wasn't much table travel involved in the milling operation. That should work well for rotary table use. The setup isn't especially elegant but it is simple, cheap and recycleable.

Charles Dukes

Return to the TIPS page


Copyright 2004, Sherline Products Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this web site, including the text, photos or illustrations, may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) for commercial use without the prior written permission of Sherline Products Inc.