Restoration and modifications to a Tom Senior light vertical mill

Thanks again for your suggestions old mart. 15 months later and I've been wondering if it might be better to take the machine to the workpiece......... The sawbench I'm modifying has a sliding table. It would be possible to mount the ram of my Dore Westbury to the sliding table in order to mill the slot in the main section of the table.

In the picture the cut is highlighted in red.

Edited By Miles Hellon on 14/10/2021 20:07:59

I need a 1" dia. cutter for the end radius. I could get one with a 1/2" shank and use a MT2 collet to mount it as high as possible in the spindle. Was thinking of this cutter

Edited By Miles Hellon on 14/10/2021 19:55:18

That is a lot to pay for one cutter. I wonder if you could get by with a 1" diameter indexable cutter. The type I had in mind uses APHT 11 or 16 inserts.

This is what I mean. In the USA or Canada, similar products would be more likely to be in inches rather than metric.

https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Cutting-Tools/Indexable-Carbide-End-Mills/90-Indexable-Carbide-End-Mills

Edited By old mart on 14/10/2021 20:14:04

I've never used indexable cutters but I don't see why not. 25mm dia. is fine and with integral 2MT....... I hadn't spotted those on the Arc website. Thanks old mart.

The type of indexable cutter I mentioned is not designed to plunge cut more than about 0.01", 0.25mm because it cannot cut in its centre. With that limitation, you could run sideways after the start and cut a groove in several depth steps, or you could use a smaller centre cutting mill to produce a narrower groove before using the bigger one. These indexable mills are available from 10mm diameter with one insert right up to 100mm diameter with about 8 inserts. The shell mills which fit on an arbor to suit your spindle start from about 40mm 4 insert, below that they are usually solid shank. I have a 25mm one with the shank turned down to 20mm to fit an R8 collet.

The indexable type are cheaper and the Chinese inserts for steel or aluminium are very cheap, and they are double ended so a box of 10 has 20 cutting edges.

Edited By old mart on 15/10/2021 18:16:08

Thanks. That should work fine, for me. It's not going to be a very rigid set-up so, I'll only be taking very light cuts. If it takes all morning to cut the rebate, that's ok! I'll do plenty of experimentation first.