It cuts very accurately, and I can hold a thousandth without really trying to hard, so the 2 hours didn’t require much focus just enough to stay out of trouble. The work shown below in the photos took me about 2 hours to do on my Lathemaster 9×30 lathe. Given the piece I had wasĪ bit long, I also center drilled so I could use a live center to support it for greater rigidity. Face and turn it for squareness before starting. The first thing to do is put some 1″ or so round steel stock into the lathe. I wanted something compact, with a 1/2″ shank, and easy for me to machine. This was not hard to do as the shape is very simple and the key dimensions are readily available on the Internet: The first thing I had to do was make a 3D model of a TPGB insert. It seemed like a good size for the toolholder dovetails, and I try to keep reusing the same insert types so restocking isn’t so painful to manage. The TPGB 21’s are right in the middle of the insert sizes my boring bars use.
The TPGB insert style I chose was based on some boring bars I had. Indexable Tooling is very economical in that respect.
I wanted an indexable dovetail cutter to make it easy to swap in new cutting edges as needed. So, I made this cutter as my first “practical” mill project. To do that I have to be able to cut the dovetails. I wanted to make Aloris-style QCTP holders for my lathe. Indexable Dovetail Cutter for CNC Joineryĭovetail joints are both strong and aesthetically pleasing, but they require a special dovetail cutter.