Jiggy! – Building A Swing Arm Jig From Scratch

Building a swing arm jig for a new project…

So here’s a rather massive clue to whats going on behind the scenes.  Not got much to say about this, other than Im pretty proud of it! It definitely features some of my best and worst welding (and a lot of mediocre in between), as well as some of my best and worst machining!

It started life as a length of 2″ square box section, which was cut and welded together, and then I ran a cutter all over it on the mill to ensure that it was square and flat and all that.

The next step was to drill holes in the correct places, weld in blank bosses and drill them to the required size…

After that, the drilled bosses were milled to the correct heights, and with a lot of flapping and faffing and angle-grinding, the 4th pickup point was added.  That just left turning the whole thing over to mill the other ends to the correct height!  A bit of deburring and chamfering later, and she was complete!

Its not that blurry in real life, honest!

My first creation for the build; a 6mm hex to 1/2″ square adaptor- now the mill has power feed courtesy of a drill!

Next up, an extended 12mm reamer!  A tad prettier (and straighter!) this time…

Creation #3 was a massive heap of mess.  I think I had the every tool on the bench at this point!

Probably my worst welding moment yet…from trying to weld upside down, without gas because the cup wouldnt fit between the mill table and the piece.

Some better welding…smug. 🙂

One of 2 cutter casualties.  This little trooper did both sides of the box section, all of the bosses, a few other odds and ends, then finally died when I asked it to skim a piece of hardened flat bar.  Thats about 1kg of swarf…good effort!  The other one was half dead when I started, and just survived the remainder of the hardened flat bar.

Its quite a marvel that any of it worked really though, considering this was the plan!

How much does it weigh? 6.07kg. Solid.

We’re excited, are you?

Tam