Need End-mill Notcher Vice Ideas.....

[cs_drums]

Although all these options are awesome im gonna play devils advocate and say that my buddy and I have hundreds if not thousands of notches with the $200 JD2 bender ( https://www.jd2.com/t-notchercomparison.aspx ). The only way I would think sinking the money the above mentioned would be if I was doing it for a living and could justify with a significant return on investment. The best thing I did was pick up a free drill press that was about to be trashed so I could have one for the notcher and one for drilling, Saves tons of time in set up. Ive developed a few different tricks for tricky notches and always been able to get what I need to work.

With all that being said couldnt you just take the bit holder and shaft off of one of these cheapies ( http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsea ... g+notcheer ) and adapt it to the mill and yeild similar results? for $50 bucks its would a try.

[cs_drums]

Favorite junction on my bronc haha

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1417789960.512110.jpg (151.32 KiB) Viewed 287 times

[ChaseTruck754]

Same reason I never did get around to setting my lathe up to do this - my JD2 notcher works fine. I have the middle of the road JD2 now (notchmaster) and it does offset notching, but my ranger was built with the basic model (TN-100) and it did just fine. I had plenty of junctions like you picture above. I'd just do extra cleanup of the high angle notches with an angle grinder.

Sure the endmill type notcher would be sweet, and that's mainly why I started gathering stuff to do it, but I don't see it as a need really.

Heck, with how little work I do now it would be silly, but yes, if one was doing multiple projects it could come in handy I guess.

I personally have my notcher set up on a hitch type setup & it slides into the hitch receivers on my tables like all my tools do. I run it with my hand drill vs. a drill press.

Here's the old JD2 on the hitch tube. Don't have any pics of the notchers plugged into the table but it works really well for me this way!

JD2 tube notcher 2.jpg (78.23 KiB) Viewed 282 times

[ChaseTruck754]

Oh and if you guys are wanting to try the notcher shaft & hole saws for this like Brian said - Swag offroad has a cool shaft they sell. Personally I'd stick with the endmillds, but if I remember right the swag shaft is about as much as the HF notcher, so why not start with a better piece if all you want is that shaft.

[Rmc]

The issue with the hf notcher is a couple of things... First off it's bronze bushing. The bronze bushings in mine spun free after 3 notches and it allowed the arbor shaft to walk and the result was accidental off center notches. The other limitation was the fact that it's distance to centerline was for 1 1/2 anything larger accentuated the off center condition.

My 2 cents is save up for the beighleigh, jd2, jmr, protools,or the olde jigger joint which all use roller bearings.

Next issue with that style of notcher is long cuts aren't possible. You can go the total depth of the hole saw, cut with a sawsall then goto the total depth agian. This isn't possible without cutting into the tube. Last thing is the holesaw adapters are junk on all of that style and hard to find replacements.

I still say it's a great non production notcher but it has a lot to be desired. I'd recommend the ultimate notcher by jd2 or the jmr notcher as a superior alternative, the swivel base allows for greater range in slight angles to be achieved vs maxing out at 50 degrees like most all other holesaw notchers.

At the end of the day though for long notches belt grinder or the endmill style far surpass the holesaw type.

[Rmc]

Here's examples of the swivel style.

[Rmc]

I just remembered something else: on all of the holesaw type you run out of arbor shaft length on long notches.

[Wrightracing.net]

I hate it when the metal jams in the hole saw. I like the JMR deep hole saws but I am still happier with the end mill. Now the notcher I really like is the belt sander ones. I did get to use Glen's from Complete Fabrication's big belt sander notcher and it the quickest and easiest way to do it. I may build a 3 hp 8" wide belt sander with exchangeable front rollers for different size tubing notches.

[cs_drums]

I just remembered something else: on all of the holesaw type you run out of arbor shaft length on long notches.

Yeah ill agree that is the biggest issue with the JD2 model. Little angle grinder action and its all good.

[VintageIronFab]

Why couldn't you use a special shaft that uses end mils in the typical nice hole saw type notchers ie the notch master type ??

[Rmc]

It's a catch 22, the lack of length requires a longer arbor shaft, but the for even smaller angles you run into issues with the tube vise being too close. I don't know it's hard to say, each type has there strong suits.

[Jbfab]

I can say i have made hundreds of notches with my Hf notcher. With a few small test peices the offset can be taken out with washers. Biggest issue i had was the housing bending which i fixed with some angle iron. The bushings are wore out a bit now but still makes a tight enough notch. I'm happy with it for the most part, i've gotten more then its moneys worth out of it.