Member postings for Ignatz

Hey, everybody! Just another shoutout of thanks for all the helpful feedback and tips. I've got a first shipment of tooling for this little mill heading my way, including a 3MT stub arbor and a few of the 80mm diameter slitting saws. Can't wait to try it out.

Thanks for the tips and advice up 'til now, guys.

Just postin' a picture of the CH-10M again to refresh your memory (should have done that to begin with)

The idea of using a slitting saw on the lathe would be just fine except... that my lathe is a Taig Micro Lathe. The Taig has served me well over the years, but the cost of equipping it to do milling work (milling attachment, mill vise, arbor and slitting saw) would be easily twice what I would spend to equip the vertical mill for slitting. And there just isn't a whole lot of XY milling/cutting range on that tiny lathe in the first place... which is why I purchased the vertical mill.

Does anyone have any advice regarding my comment about using the Morse Taper sleeve adaptor to use stub arbors with a smaller shank (MT2)? As I was wondering, does the use of an adaptor lead to excessive runout? It also seems to me that using one Morse Taper shank within another just has twice as many surfaces that could 'slip' while cutting. Does this tend to be a serious problem out there in the real world? On the other hand, given the fragile transmission gear tooth problem with this vertical mill (mentioned above), slipping surfaces could be regarded as a sort of 'safety clutch' (ha! ha!).

Hey everybody, just have another question in connection with my new (used) CH-10M vertical milling drilling machine (think Seig X2). The spindle on this thing is bored out for MT3 tooling and has a 12M-threaded drawbar.

I am sort of giving the nod to the tooling offered by the people at Arc Euro Trade. It would seem that I have the following choices.

If I mount a slitting saw arbor that is has direct fit MT3 taper shank on this mill then it looks like I have to use either 63mm diamter slitting saws (on a 16mm stub arbor) or else 80mm diameter slitting saws (on a 22mm stub arbor).

On the other hand, should I opt for stub arbors having the MT2 taper and then use a Morse Taper adaptor sleeve (MT3 to MT2) I can use slitting of either 50mm in diameter or else 63mm in diameter.

So now the questions:

A) What size of slitting saw can this thing can reasonably and safely swing? I know that the gearing on this little mill is a potential weak point (can shed transmission gear teeth when overstressed) and that no matter what slitting saw I choose I would have to advance the work slowly and carefully. But should I actually be afraid of mounting the larger diameter slitting saws?

B) Does the CH-10M mill actually even have enough 'oomph' to use the larger diameter slitting saws?

C) If I wanted to go for the smallest diameter slitting saws (50mm) I would need to use an adaptor sleeve (as well as cobble together an M10 drawbar). Is this a bad idea? Does the use of an adaptor sleeve necessarily mean I'm going to get more tool runout?

Any comments or advice richly appreciated.

John, thanks for the feedback. From what you say it looks like I'm going to have to solve the problem of equipping my mill with some sort of a fine feed before I think of throwing any good money at boring bars.

From what I have seen (and read) I can agree that a fine feed is required. It seems only natural that a motor-driven fine feed would produce the best results. Does fine-feeding with the little hand knob on the X2 work?

If this is sufficient it, of course, brings me around to trying to find some way to retrofit my machine with some (appropriate) gearing or mechanism to obtain the same result.

Given that I have only this vertical mill and a small Taig Micro lathe I am not completely certain that I can actually produce the required items to effect such a change. Or am I wrong?

Neil, much thanks for the feedback and I'll look into the idea of adding a stiffening plate. That digital readout might also be nice (Have to check my pocketbook on that one.)

This still begs the question as to whether or not this little mill is up to the task of using a (small) boring head. From what little I can find to read about these mills on the internet t seems they have a reputation for losing transmission gear teeth if subjected to overly-heavy cutting force. I'm thinking that unless one was very careful, feeding a boring head by means of the lever arms might accidently take too big a bite of the workpiece. What do you think?

John, thanks for the info, especially that last bit about the X/Y axis dials. I took another look, loosened up the grub screws, gave 'em a shot of something on the lines of WD40 and then using a large pair of pliers (with some protective cushioning between jaws and verniers dials) gentley eased them free from whatever grease had frozen up inside. The dials now work quite well. One less problem to deal with. (audible sigh of relief!)

Hey everyone, just a quick introduction here. I call myself Ignatz and live over here in Belgium. Just getting a bit deeper into the world of machining, but still pretty much in beginner territory. I've had a little Taig lathe for donkey's years and finally decided to take the plunge and get something to handle the milling work.

This is a small vertical mill/drill unit I purchased some weeks ago. It is a CH-10M unit, made in Taiwan and dates from 1999. It is in surprisingly good shape for its age. The motor runs well and the carbon brushes don't appear to have any appreciable wear. I also think the previous owner loved lubrication… maybe to a fault. The mill came with a fair number of end mills, reamers and such and now I am in the process of acquiring some of the necessary tooling to complete this unit.

Anyway, I have a few questions.

A) This unit does not have the optional fine feed wheel (photos B, C). This can make fine work on the Z-axis pretty iffy. I am wondering if anyone knows if a fine-feed unit can be obtained for this mill after the fact, or else, failing that, if there are any plans or write-ups online detailing the construction of one's own fine-feed system.

B) Does the CH-10M have the necessary rigidity and fineness of feed to do any boring work? If not then I would rather not waste any money on tooling for such.

C) Both of the depth readouts on the unit are pretty primitive (side scale with a pointer and that calibrated twist dial around the downfeed spindel (photo B). Any suggestions as to the best way to mount something like a dial gauge or such?

D) This unit has X-Y readouts that appear to be one single piece with the handwheel (photo D). This means you cannot roate them to zero them out, but instead have to do a lot of fussy number-math when doing any precision work. Can it be done and is it worth my time to try to refit the X-Y leadscrews with newer handwheels with the spring-loaded zero-able scales?

E) The spindle nose on this is short and the X table is made from (extruded?) aluminum (alloy?). That means that findng a place to lock down a magnetic DTI indicator base for tramming is not the easiest of tasks. Any suggestions as to the best DTI holders for this little beast?

Any advice or commentary welcome.

A big 'thank you' to everyone who commented and assisted me in figuring this out.

Thanks, Old School & JasonB. At least now I know what this thing takes.

Also (after nosing around on the net), I see that almost nobody else sells these things, (=limited price competition). And I'm also sort of thinking that this might be a deprecated collet style.

I managed to find one photo of the holder with the collets posted on the net ( **LINK** ) and from what I can see in that photo it also looks like this particular kind of collet might not even grip the tool shank from end to end as tightly as the newer ER series. (?)

It might be more worthwhile for me to just step up to something like an ER20 or ER25 system in order to also be able to grip larger end mills (12mm, 16mm).

Ah, but of course if I HAD any of the collets to go with the holder I wouldn't be so confused

Here is the best image I can make of the little logo stamped into the side of the tool. It looks to me like a wrench within a square with rounded corners.

There is a flange inside (a clip, really), but I agree that the nose piece doesn't seem to resemble the photos of ER collet holders I've seen advertised for sale online. In general, the nose opening on ER collet holders appears to be wider. But, again, I just don't know.

I've done a little bit of nosing about online, but there appear to be so many sorts of collets (some current, some no longer produced) which are in many ways similar, but just enough different to not be interchangeable, which is why I don't feel comfortable plunking down hard cash for some sort of collet which might not fit.

I very recently acquired a small, used vertical mill having a spindle bored out for Morse Taper 3.

Amongst the tooling which came with the mill is what I take to be a collet holder. Unfortunately, the holder came without any collets and I do not know which collet system (or size) it uses. I am thinking that this holder might be for ER-16 collets, but as I am new to metal milling and cannot be absolutely certain of same I am hesitant to order such collets on mere suspicion alone.

I am wondering is if any of you might be able to assist me in identifying this collet holder and the type of collets it uses. To this end I have attached a number of photographs of same.

I can tell you the following:

• The holder is labeled “3 x 16 - 1492” in the groove on the side of the MT3 shank.
• The holder is retained in the mill spindle by an M-12 threaded drawbar.
• The absolute diameter of the opening in the nose piece of the collet holder at the front end is 12mm, but in reality the shank of a standard 12mm drill will not quite fit through this hole.
• It might be difficult to see from my photograph, but the nose piece does have a retaining clip within.
• I cannot get my vernier caliper down into the nose piece directly, but by using a piece of measured paper I estimate the taper in the nose piece to be 16mm at its widest opening.
• In the rear section of the holder (connected to the MT3 shank), the maximum diameter of the taper (at the widest portion to the front) is 16mm.
• The nose piece, itself, does not rotate, but is pulled down tight by turning the captive threaded ring on the main portion of the holder. This action would appear to apply a straight compression effect without twist.

Edited By JasonB on 14/11/2015 16:38:21