I've been a machinist for a long time now and one of the things that comes in handy on a milling machine is a work stop. Now work stops come in all shapes and sizes and are used for a lot of setups that you encounter on most metal working machines. These devices make life easier but most of the time they're a necessity. What exactly are works stops? They are used to 'place' or 'bank' your work against while machining so the operation that you're doing repeats accurately.

Example: say I have some work pieces that are 15" long by 4" wide by 1" thick. And I want to machine the 4" width of the work pieces down a small amount. To do this I'd place the two work stops about 12" or 13" apart, bank my work piece against them, and then clamp them down. Now I'm ready to machine these pieces to a certain dimension and they would all come out the same size (theoretically or course).

What you see below are two different kinds of work stops. The one on the left is something I made when I first got in the trade back in the mid 70's and they have worked pretty good all these years. However, like anything else, there's room for improvement. These older ones have a tendency to fall over when they are bumped or while your machining making it frustrating to say the least. Once they've fallen over, you need to dig them out of the slots of the mill table because they are below the surface.

While I was machining a project awhile back, I started thinking about what improvements I could make. One thing lead to another and what you see to the right are what I came up with.

Here you can see how they are used, which should give you a better idea of what I was talking about. The slots in the mill table are 5/8" wide but the depth of them are about one inch. Now you can understand what I mean about them falling over and being problem to work with. The new ones are not going to tip or fall being made like the letter 'T'.

Here is a good example of me using my new work stops. This kind of setup is quick and easy but it's also very accurate. By machining one side, then turning your work piece 180 degrees, banking your newly cut surface against the work stops, you then machine the opposite side and they will be parallel to each other.

Here I'm using them to make sure my sine bar is parallel to X axis so I can end up having an accurate angle. This worked out great and they make life so much easier now.

Putting holes in tooling isn't just to make them lighter, they can be very useful as well. Here I'm using them on the outside of the mill table, and again, using them with my sine bar. I needed all the room I could get while I was machining this part so this setup worked out really well.

I've found many uses for these new work stops, but I should have done this years ago. Anyways, I'm sure I'll find many more uses for them along the way.... and they won't fall over any more :-}