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Bought spiral feather board that came with a standard sized aluminium miter slot insert. It has a counersunk screw with wings on the shaft that fit in slots in the insert. That screw protrudes through the feather board for a knob to loosen or tighten the board in position. So... I need to maintain that set up for it to work. All this is to say that I can't use another insert.
Now, my question is how would you set up the disc or belt sander to bring the 4 5/8" long insert down to the size needed to fit my SS table miter slot? I don't have ready access to a machine shop.
Thanks in advance for your help.

I am reminded that not long ago on youtube I saw Terry Gordon (of HNT Gordon planes & vises) actually chamfering an aluminum vise component with a rugged little Lie Nielsen block plane. Who knows, maybe a cutting action rather than abrasion could work?

Otherwise, it would see possible to use the disc-sander with either a very good holding jig, or by repetitive sandings down to a very well-scribed reference line. Aluminum tends to get gummy in certain abrasives, so that is something to watch for.

Good luck!

How about the conical sander? That may be a good option

Any chance you could fabricate one from a piece of wood?

Hobbyman2 wrote:Any chance you could fabricate one from a piece of wood?

Probably could. I think trimming/sanding the sides would be faster and easier. I'll put my vast and extensive engineering skills to work and devise a holder to sand it to scribed lines.

Could you post a picture of the part to help us visualize it better.

Off hand, I suspect that there isn't a lot of material that needs removing. The safest way is probably to hold it in a vise and file it to size.

rpd wrote:Could you post a picture of the part to help us visualize it better.

Off hand, I suspect that there isn't a lot of material that needs removing. The safest way is probably to hold it in a vise and file it to size.

I have done this with a small steel miter bar. It only took about 5 minutes of filing to fit the SS miter slot. I would also recommend getting a file for aluminum if you go this route. A regular steel file will fill with the aluminum shavings and a file card will take a long time to clear the file cutting surface for use afterwards.

Just wondering if you could sub Shopsmith Sliding T-Nuts for that part, and keep the original in case you ever want to use it on a standard saw.

https://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cat ... ngnuts.htm

This solution posted in another thread:https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... 51#p265351

Mike

I used the conical disk with fence, in multiple passes to grind down an aluminum bar to fit in the miter slot. Did a perfect job. Just lowered the table very slightly each pass to increase the grind until it fit perfectly.