For a while now I have been looking into various options for storing my lathe and milling tooling, having them loose in my roller cabinet drawers is not really working for me and not ideal for the tooling either.
I had been considering using rectangular box section aluminium like Chris Heapy
but at around £17.00 + £8.50 shipping ($25.50 + $12.75) per metre for 3″x2″ 10swg tubing, I thought I would look for a cheaper option.
I found some Tormach TTS holders on Thingiverse
but when I worked out the cost of printing them which came to nearly £1.00 ($1.50) each at 50% fill and £0.69 ($1.00) each with minimal infill, these were almost as expensive as the aluminium box section.
I also priced up Aluminium U section, but that was even more expensive than the box section.
I was searching around some more forums and came across the following on CNCZone
Now this looked like it had ‘cheap’ written all over it, plus the wood is unlikely to scratch the tools or react with the steel, in fact it is thought to be good at helping to prevent rusting.
I still have plenty of off-cuts of ‘2×4’ PAR timber from our loft conversion a few years back, so these would in effect be free, plus I can buy many more from my local Selco builders warehouse for just under £1.00 ($1.50) per metre.
I decided to lop off one corner at 30 degrees and then stagger the TTS holders in 2 rows at 50mm intervals as per this drawing:
They were simple enough to make, I cut the angle on the bandsaw, then marked out all of the holes and finally drilled them with a 20mm Forstner bit in the drill press.
The mounting screw holes were drilled at right angles to the 30 degree slant from the rear and came out at about the centre line of the upper face.
They were secured to the wall of the workshop with three 5x80mm screws.
I made a similar one for my Morse taper tooling using a 12mm drill for the 1MT, 18mm for the 2MT and 24mm for the 3MT tools, although this one is a bit more cramped.
I still need to make one suitable for my R8 tooling and I will make a second shorter one for yet more Morse taper tooling, so that the larger items are not so cramped.