My third-year project from the Aerospace Manufacturing Engineering Technology (AMET) program I took at Confederation College. The project was to recreate a drill jig being used by students taking the Aircraft Assembly 1 in the second semester of the program.
The jig allowed students to accurately and repeatedly drill all of the holes in their Web Assembly projects, which would then be used to rivet the entire assembly together. The parts would be mounted on the jig by positioning lugs on the parts onto locating buttons and the compressing the parts using a top plate and clamp. The greatest issue with the jig was that there was only one, for a class of 15, which created a huge bottleneck and extended lead times for final assemblies, leading to their needing to be a second jig.
I started the project by taking measurements of the original tool and recreating it as an assembly in Fusion 360. I then 3D printed, using a FDM printer, prototypes to test fits and how the tool worked. Once I was satisfied with the prototypes, I began coding CAM programs to machine the parts using one of the CNC milling machines at the school. After machining all of the parts and testing fits and precision, I finished the tool by anodizing the aluminum parts, tool blackening the steel parts, and laser engraving the tool number on the base of the tool.
One thing of interest about this project was creating the drill bushings out of dowel pins rather than purchasing them brand new. This was done by using a small hole and wire EDM machine; an initial hole would be cut by the small hole machine, and then the hole would be enlarged by using a brass wire to cut to the final diameter. Additionally, one important design change that was made to my version of the jig was changing the profile of the ledge the clamp sat on so that it matched the side profile of the top plate. This was done to help with aligning the top plate more easily with the base plate.
Skills Used
| CNC Machining/CAM | Material Sciences |
| CAD | 3D Printing |