First Project: T-Slot Cleaner

	First project second pass. The first try was using double stick tape, which did not work out. Clamping as is shown did work quite well. The two "floating" washers behind the washers with the bolt support the back side and work like the step block in that it is pretty close to the thickness of the work piece. The workpiece was squared to the table edges and that seems to have worked out well. As near as I can tell the cuts followed the lines I scribed by setting the calipers to the desired dimension and using the jaws as a scribe.
	A bit of a closeup where you can see how the mill wandered when using the double sticky tape. Sacrifical wood was probably not a good choice for the tape and it might do better on metal, but the wood was what I had. Under no conditions am I going to work directly on the top of the table.
	Notches are cut out at this point. Sweeping with the chip brush and cranking with the other to keep the scribe lines clear. Was running the micro-mill on the high range and at least half way up. I already want a tachometer on the spindle shaft. I was rather pleased that the cutter tracked the lines as best I could tell visually!
	Cutting the angles. I forgot to scribe those before clamping it and didn't notice one side was a bit off. You can see the rolls in the line that comes from cranking the X axis for a bit and the Y axis to get to the line. These will be smoothed out later with a file. CNC would make this trivial once you got the program written :-).
	This is what I used in place of Dykum Blue to color the blank so I could scribe easy to see lines in it. Worked out well but not as pretty as the Dykum :-). Essentially a LARGE magic marker used to letter posters.
	Used the 1/8" end mill to drill the hanging slot.
	All done, now to go finish it and clean it up with the file. Oops, forgot to mark and cut the bottom to match the slot size in the table. Now we have to mount it again.
	Measured the actual slot width and subtracted that from the width of the work piece. Divided the result by two and set the calipers to that dimension and scribed lines from each end. Actually I took off some to make sure it wasn't a perfect fit and would slide through the slot without a press, I think I subtracted 0.020 off each side. Clamped again and ready to cut the part that goes into the slot to proper width.
	Ears are milled off now and it fits the slot!
	The home brew Dykum is sanded off and the edges are all broken with a file. Almost there.
	Cleanup done! Now we have a T-Slot cleaner and saved ourselves a whole $1.49 plus shipping :-)! The savings here isn't the issue. I could have also made this with just a hacksaw and a file. What is important is that I used the mill to do it and figured it all out. Not a complex project, but I did learn a lot and got some experience with the mill. It isn't perfect by any means, but what I learned in the process was a lot more valuable.

Conclusion

So just what did I learn here?

1. The magic marker worked quite well enough as a replacement for the Dykum to markup the workpiece. If I was doing a much larger area, I'd still like to have the Dykum just for the brush, but this works and works well. It is available locally and is cheap, I've had that marker for at least 5 years now.
2. To be a bit more attentive to making sure everything is laid out before I clamp and start cutting. Yes, I was more than a bit eager to do this and it caught me twice. The angled edges I tried to layout while clamped, you can see how well that worked. The correct width for matching the slot got forgotten in the enthusiasm. Fortunately it was easy to clamp again, but everything might not be that easy.
3. The workaround clamping worked out far better than expected, even with me cutting through the entire 1/8" workpiece, abet slowly, but not too slowly - confortable speed to be able to keep the chips clear and be able to watch the lines.
4. I can use the mill :-). While the piece I made isn't perfect, it is perfectly serviceable. The next thing I do will benefit from what I learned here!
5. I'm doing a lot better than I thought I could :-)!!! I'm really quite pleased with it all.