{"id":114,"date":"2011-04-17T21:25:07","date_gmt":"2011-04-17T20:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/?p=114"},"modified":"2011-04-17T21:25:07","modified_gmt":"2011-04-17T20:25:07","slug":"making-dice-in-brass-or-other-metal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/making-dice-in-brass-or-other-metal\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Dice in Brass (or other metal)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some notes on making dice (or just one die) in brass (etc) in the metalwork shop, suitable for a total beginner. I did it with my 10-year old. I used some half-inch square brass stock.<\/p>\n

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  1. Set the stock in the lathe using a 4 jaw chuck. Get it close to centred by sighting the edges against the cutting tool. I tend to face off with a TCMT (carbide tipped) tool where the tip points away from the tool post (i.e. a 60 degree angle to the work). I used my top speed of 1800RPM but you could go faster.<\/li>\n
  2. Face it off.<\/li>\n
  3. Mark out and cut off slightly over 1\/2″ from the stock, file it down a bit to remove the unevenness.<\/li>\n
  4. Fly-cut (1″ or slightly larger fly cutter) the sawn face to get to a cube.\u00a0 Use a speed of about 1100 RPM and work in stages of measure-then-cut. This is quite easy even in a small mill\/drill. Lock the table in position and the head in place while cutting. A digital scale on the vertical axis is really useful for this (the vertical fine-feed on my machine is hopeless) . An alternative is just to face-off this end in the lathe but I find it easier to finish off at the correct length flycutting and it demonstrated the technique.<\/li>\n
  5. Gently remove rough or sharp edges with a fine file or emery paper.<\/li>\n
  6. Set up an arrangement like the photo. The tool clamp provides a positive location so that the die can be turned over and around and returned to the same position.<\/li>\n
  7. Turn the cube over so that the previously-turned face is upper-most. Fit a centre-drill into the chuck with a point of the size you want the die dots to be. Traverse the milling table so that the centre of the face is lined up. The marks from the facing-off operation should be sufficient and give a nice appearance. (this is why you need to get it “close to centred” in step 1). Make sure\u00a0 you remember to take account of backlash in the leadscrews. I made sure I approached the centre by turning the handwheels in a clockwise direction. Zero the collars or mark off the handwheel positions carefully.<\/li>\n
  8. Drill to depth. Set the depth-stop and drill again to meet the stop.<\/li>\n
  9. Remove the die, rotate to another face, snug-it up against the tool clamp and secure the die. Drill another centre hole (say for the “3” side) then a final hole (say for the “5” side). Remember opposite sides of dice add up to seven.<\/li>\n
  10. Decide where the corner dots will be and traverse both axes of the milling table to position the cube appropriately. Traverse the same distance for each axis. I opted for a whole number of revolutions of the handwheels for simplicity. Remember to turn them the same way as in step 7 to mitigate for backlash.<\/li>\n
  11. Reclamp the table and drill a dot. Loosen the milling vice and rotate the die by quarter of a turn. Repeat until you’ve made the “5”. Use the same process to make the “3”.<\/li>\n
  12. It should now be obvious how to make the “2” and “4”. The “6” is made by making a “4” then return one of the milling tables to its “zero” position (step 7). Reverse back past “zero” by about half a turn of the handwheel them advance back to “zero”. Clamp the table and drill. Rotate half a turn and complete the last hole.<\/li>\n
  13. Polish it up, slightly round off the edges and corners and you are done.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    My daughter was well pleased with the result and rather impressed by the simple little tricks that make it quite easy to get a neat and regular result with minimal fuss and fiddle: the trick with the tool clamp, rotating the die, the depth stop. If I were to make another, I think I would place the “spots” slightly further from the edges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here are some notes on making dice (or just one die) in brass (etc) in the metalwork shop, suitable for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-model-engineering_designs","category-model-engineering","post-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}