Joe Peitz of Nashua, NH submitted a program and some photos showing how you can make your own set of box wrenches using a Sherline CNC mill. A couple of sub-routines are utilized. This project is a good example of the versatility of CNC. Here’s what he had to say:
“I ran into a Sherline 2000 at my local hobbyist club. I looked around and looked around for sample programs used for making box wrenches and couldn’t find one, so I wrote one and would like to pass it on for inclusion in your next software release if you think it passes muster. The program mills a box wrench out of sheet of material using only g-codes. By editing the program you can change the number of flats, width, length, diameter and depth of total cut which are variables inside the program which is fairly heavily commented. It can result in a quite useable tool and (I think) it shows off the power of G-code and the Sherline 2000. If you want to use it, feel free to edit it in any way and/or distribute it free from any copyrights.”
—Joe Peitz
Shown above are several test parts cut from wood to test the g-code plus a piece of aluminum from which one of the wrenches was cut.
A PDF file that further explains the process is available here: CNCboxwrench
A text file in .TXT format that contains the g-code can be downloaded here: CNCboxwrenchGcode. The code has a lot of comments added in parenthesis to explain the process in further detail. If you g-code experts out there have any suggestions for improvement we will pass them on to the author.
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