Buying a mill - What basic Toolkit?

Drills/cuttes are consumables, so we can ignore them, as the OP asked about equipment. In no particular order here are some things I use on my milling machines:

2-axis DRO - on the vertical mill, single most useful thing I bought

Machine vice - Gets used a lot on both vertical and CNC mills

Ground parallels - used almost every time I use the vice - mine were made by the late father of a friend who was a toolmaker. I also use gauge plate as poor mans parallels when needed

Clamp sets - you can never have enough sets, I have 3x½" for the surface grinder and lathe faceplates and 4x5/8" for the mills. Places like MSC have special offers, around £30 per set, so it's pointless making ones own. They have other uses to:

Drill chucks - can be shared with the lathe, but I have my own set of 4 that are also used with the CNC mill

Toolholders - I use 6mm and 10mm sidelock holders that are part of a "quickchange" system for the CNC mill, as well as the odd use of ER20 collets. I also have an Autolock clone and large sidelock holders for the bigger, >½" diameter, cutters

Angle plates - Over the years I have acquired a large selection from small to large. They get used reasonably frequently

Box cubes - Two acquired from Ebay, used more on the horizontal mill

V-blocks - I've got them anyway, although they're rarely used on the mill. If I need to cut keyways or slots in shafts I usually just rest the shaft in the central T-slot

Edge finder - For quick 'n' dirty I just touch off with the tool on the work, or vice jaws, and a fag paper. For more precision I've got a Haimer

Centre finder - Quick 'n' dirty is done by eye, or touching off on four sides and using the ½ function on the DRO; for precision stuff I've got a different sort of Haimer

DTI and Mag stand - Got them anyway; used on the mills mostly for setting the vice jaws parallel. Of course I could make some keys for the slots on the bottom of the vice, but the T-slots on all three mills are a few thou different, so I prefer to use the DTI to obtain a maximum of ±0.02mm across the jaw width.

Rotary table - Not used that much, especially as the DRO has a bolt circle function, but has it's uses:

My rotary table has a 1" parallel central hole, which I reckon is a darn sight more useful than a Morse taper, as it is easy to make up mandrels for locating the work.

Dividing head - Gets used quite a lot, more so on the horizontal mill. It's a bit of a lump to get bolted down, but with a 56/60 slot disk on the back it is very quick when using it as a spin indexer.

Tilting table - Doesn't get used that much, but very useful when you need to set precise angles and mine was cheap if rather battered:

El cheapo paint brushes - I use a 2" one for general swarf clearance and cleaning up, and ½" one for final cleaning of the T-slots

Nylon hammer - useful for tapping work down in the vice and general "adjustment" of part position

Boring heads - not used much, but like many things when you need it............I've got a cheapo (Soba?) one for the vertical mill and a secondhand Wohlhaupter boring and facing head for the horizontal. The Soba one works ok, once I ground the supplied tools properly and replaced the cheesy setscrews - oddly they were Whitworth threadform

Apart from clamps and toolholders none of the above are essential to get going. I bought tool/drill holders, DRO, vice and clamp sets new; everything else was bought on Ebay, given to me or acquired elsewhere over time, even if I didn't have an immediate use. There are other accessories I have, but generally they're only available for industrial size mills, so no point in detailing them here.

I'm bound to have forgotten something, but the key thing to remember is that you can start with very little and build up as you go. You can get a long way with simple techniques. For instance want something parallel to the table? I just put a length of gauge plate in a T-slot and butt the work against it. No need to measure anything. Want it at right-angles? Use the gauge plate to act as reference for an angle plate bolted across the table.

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 30/10/2017 10:50:21

With the rapid service that some of our suppliers provide it is not necessary to buy more than a minimum setup to get you started. If you plan the jobs coming up and check how you can do them with what you have then if you need something you don't yet have it is usually only a few days until it arrives on your doorstep. It is easy to buy things you fancy and find you rarely/never use them. I have let the tool mania overtake me at times and have quite a few things that do not earn their keep, the trouble with tool mania is it is hard to let go of things as well. If I let my wife sort out my tools I would be left with a screwdriver and adjustable spanner and an empty workshop!

Mike

Indeed - currently MSC has the generic "52 piece clamp set" on offer at £30 or so (look at the last page of this month's offers shown in the link). I got a (second) set from them recently and they are pretty decent. It would cost you more than that in cutters to "just make your own". Apart from the myriad clamps themselves, there is a useful selection of tee nuts and bolts that are useful for holding down vises etc. I seem to manage 90% of my work in the machine vises. Either way, the table has tee slots, so you are going to want a set of tee nuts and bolts...

Murray

The six most often things used on my mill are:

Machine vice

ER32 collet chuck

Parallels

Drill chuck

Copper and hide hammer

One inch paint brush for clearing scarf

True of anything in engineering. That's why personal preference should not be underestimated as an important factor.

For example I use my clamp set regularly.

I have made t-nuts with undersize M6 threads for small items.

Neil

Till you know want you want to make.

3" vice -bog standard machine vice not a wobbly tilting one. Make it's locating blocks for your first project

Cutter holder - Vertex Osborn clone suits me as you don't have to wang it up very tight and I have a load of threaded cutters, others like ER versions for plain cutters.

tee nuts can be 60p each at Warco - pairs of clamps are best from RDG - buy extras at an ME show. Get some decent threaded rod in whatever size fits your table slots.

Parallels - small thin ones, lathe tool blanks will do for thick ones.

That covers the two primary objectives.

• holding the work still
• holding the cutter

The rest is nice to have which you may never use..

A dial indicator has to be an essential as a vice will certainly need to be set true to the machine axes and even a clamp setup may have pre machined faces to set up. The head of the mill may need tramming if it is moveable or if the column is bolted on.

Mike

I was shown how to get the head of a mill vertical with a long bent rod and a fag paper! Half a thou over 30 inches is close enough!

Murray

I was going to grab one of those - but the offer expired on 27 Oct

Indeed it is Vic; So could you please give a bit more info as I am sure that I am not the only interested person here.

* Danny M *

I was wrong, I've got 5 sets of the 5/8" clamps.

I wouldn't worry about the offer expiring; I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't in the next flyer as well. The items on offer from MSC don't seem to vary much from flyer to flyer.

Andrew

I suppose essential is an over emphasis but it does make life easier

Andrew

I've already checked the November flyer, only the 5/8 ones are on offer (my Warco mill is 12mm).

But, they have some good offers, I am sure you are right that they will appear again, and I have signed up for their newsletter; so thanks for that

Edited By David Standing 1 on 31/10/2017 13:46:40

Must be higher quality fag papers, as mine measure 1 thou thick.

Andrew

I would imagine a feeler of any thickness can be used with a bent rod just keep adjusting until you have the same feel in each extremity.

Mike