Milling on a Lathe with a Vertical Slide

Dod you mean on a Milling Machine or on a modified Lathe?

Why would you fit a vertical slide to a milling machine?

A vertical slide on a lathe gives a you a very small area for your tool to work in. Fitting the vertical slide at the outboard end of the cross-slide makes that even smaller.

The V. slide is not going to be mounted to the compound slide mount, the compound fixings are used to mount a sub plate and then the V slide is fitted to an angle plate fixed to the subplate which puts it in the best position to get the most movement across the lathe as well as vertically downwards 

Edited By JasonB on 11/07/2021 16:23:17

So in between jobs, I started to take some measurements and plan for this modification.

Here is a pic of a piece of plate I bought from eBay to make the base plate and also the 6" x 5" x 1.5" Angle Plate from RDG Tools eBay outlet.

Sadly the plate is not machined and appears to be a piece of 150mm x 10mm plate cut at 150mm. I am not sure whether I should clean it up as best I can with a Flap Disc as it won't be perfectly flat?

It may need cutting down to fit nicely on the base plate.

Earlier in this thread I was also a little unsure whether the 5mm Allen Bolts that are employed in this Lathe, would be sufficient to hold a base plate and milling attachment for milling. However in this video by Ade from Ade's Workshop 'Shed Talk 11', he has made a similar attachment for the same lathe and has had good results. The milling attachment can be found at about 8:43 into the video. He uses the 5mm allen bolts and incorporates a third at the opposite end of the Cross Slide.

The M5 fixings should be OK, it's not as though you will be taking reaLly heavy cuts. The third tapping is a good idea.

You probably would have been better off with bright (hot rolled) material rather than Black (cold rolled)

So, I made a little more progress tonight before leaving for home but made a bit of a mess TBH.

I marked the locations of all three holes in the base plate and centre punched them, everything looked good until I had finished drilling them and found the the base plate did not fit on the swivel. On closer inspection one of the outer holes was out of centre (I must have rushed it)

So watchingthe video again, he measured, marked and drilled the middle hole but the placed the swivel on the base plate and used a transfer punch, that way ensuring that the holes were correctly located!!!

I should have watched the video again before taking on the task - school boy error!!!

Anyway, I don't have a transfer punch so should I buy one or is there another method?

I found this one on Chronos but I don't quite understand it as it says it is a 5 - 20mm? I need one to fit through a 5mm hole?

Edited By JasonB on 14/07/2021 19:42:40

You can twist a 5mm drill bit in your fingers to mark the surface or turn a point on a bit of 5mm rod or turn down larger dia to 5mm and point that.

The tapered part of the Chronos one will sit in a 5-20mm hole but you need to make sure it is perfectly vertical. Other option is punches like these 

Edited By JasonB on 14/07/2021 19:46:00

I found the same multi transfer punch on RDG but it gives a diagram on how to use it, very easy to be off centre (a bit like my manual scribing!!!)

Yes have lathe - make tool

I'll have a go at making one, no point buying a whole set, besides I want to get stuck into this at the weekend and nothing I order now will arrive in time. 6mm bolt or a bit of rod and turn it down with a point on the end.

And I thought I was doing so well

I’ve found that if you have to use through punches do not hold them at the end hold next to the material.

Well, now that school is out I can spend a little un disturbed time on this project.

I made some better progress today. After the previous mishap I marked a new centre hole on the same piece of blank steel but on the opposite side (this will be covered by the Angle Plate anyway).

After marking and drilling the centre hole, I placed the baseplate on the Compound Slide Swivel Plate (or Micrometer Pan), as it is called in the manual and transferred the position of the first hole using a 4mm drill. Once drilled and checked I transferred the position of the second hole in the same manner.

Here are the old and new sets of holes.

Next I needed to measure the heads of the allen bolts and counterbore the holes so that the bolt heads were not proud of the face. The problem was that, after turning the workshop upside down, the bolts were nowhere to be seen!!!

I then searched in all of my bags and the house, probably spent about an hour looking and after giving up, I found them later that day!!!

To counterbore, I needed an 8.5mm flat bottomed drill, which I do not posses, so I made one using a spare drill bit.

I started the hole with an 8.5mm standard drill bit and then lined up and went in with the flat bottom drill bit. For these larger drills I turned the drill speed down to 600rpm?

I also lined the drill up with the face of the material and set a depth stop.

Then lined up the drill bit, secured the work piece and in we went.

Here are the two holes, one is slightly deeper

Here it is in place.

The bolts need shortening slightly and I need to make a recess in the base or maybe fit a shim, as the screw that holds the cross slide threaded nut in place sits proud of the face plate.

You are making progress!

There is light at the end of the tunnel which will bring great satisfaction when everything goes to gether and functions as intended.

Keep at it!

Howard

.

I hope Ketan, at ARC, is not offended

MichaelG.

Hmm, I need a 14mm recess and I only have up to 13mm drills.
I don’ t think the drill does more than 13mm?

You have got a mill now so you can either do a "square" recess with rounded corners using say a 6mm cutter or if you have a boring head that could be used.

"blacksmiths" drills have a 1/2" shank and come in larger diameters if you want to drill the recess 

Edited By JasonB on 28/07/2021 10:04:22

Here's the method I use to set up my vertical slide on the Warco WM250V. It seems quick, simple and reliable to me, and you don't usually have to take off the topslide/toolpost assy.:-

1. Clear lathe

2. fiddle slide into position

3. Butt the vice fixed jaw to the front face of chuck jaws

4. Lightly nip the distal capscrews

5. Tighten the proximal capscrews near...

6. ...and far

7. Check jaws still in contact

8. Check you can mill across full width of vice.

9. Set clock on far edge of vice jaw

10. Wind crossslide to near edge of vice jaw and check clock. Parallel within about a thou.

This just takes me a couple of minutes.

Here's the milling slide for a mini-lathe attached in the same way to my WM250:

and

I did that to attach a milling spindle:

which works well, and can be fitted anywhere along the cross slide. Its main use is for cross drilling holes, PCDs or fluting knobs so it normally lives in a QCTP holder

But I don't have a mill, this plate is for the mill and without it fitted I can't mill

Those just-bigger-than-a-drill holes can be really annoying so I made up a 10mm boring bar

Now I can drill to 12mm and use the bar to open it up to whatever is needed

...then I made a 16mm one for even bigger holes... which has done up past 40mm so far

Edited By Ady1 on 28/07/2021 23:06:13

Sorry, it's the other William who has just got a mill.

Blacksmith's drill it is then or a 1/2" or 13mm one and then use a countersink to put a good chamfer on the edge which will then clear the 14mm obstruction

Can't quite work out how you have attached the Vertical Slide, looks like its fitted direct to the cross slide?