New Mill - Starter Tooling

They are a bit dirty and a bit of a tight fit. I just ran a plug tap into the vice shown above, went in plenty far enough for the supplied screws.

Our posts crossed Jason, I did the same with the plug tap.

Have a look here:

**LINK**

Copy, print and laminate and leave by the mill.

Ron is not using Carbide insert milling cutters so not that much use to him.

Also there comments on power requirements are base on belt drive not variable speed machines.

Edited By JasonB on 22/10/2018 19:31:35

Noticed some M8 carriage bolts in my woodworking box, a quick measure up found the square section at the base of the thread fits the table tee slot. A couple of flats milled on the head and you have a couple of tee bolts. I know that carriage bolts come in numerous sizes, I think for the M8 there is about 30 sizes from 20mm up to 240mm. A selection of sizes could be useful for the clamping set, they only take 5 minutes to mill and they are also available in stainless.

Edited By Ron Laden on 23/10/2018 08:48:19

Well done Ron. That's exactly what I did on my first mill in order to clamp some material to the table to make some proper T-nuts.

Russell

I think that’s how I made my first T nuts as well!

Almost got caught out this morning by the mill, on my mini-lathe when you cut the power by either the chuck guard, the on/off switch or kill button the lathe will not start again if there is any setting on the speed control. You have to turn the speed control off and then back on before it will start, not so the mill. The mills speed control doesnt have an on/off position just min/max, I never gave it a thought as I always stop the mill before switching off the power. Since I last used it the mills speed control was dialled in to about quarter speed which I didnt notice and I cant think how it happened, anyway when I switched on the mill it fired up into drive.. so a lesson learnt. Pity it doesnt have the same safety built in like the lathe.

Ron, it is not good practice to stop the mill or the lathe by the guard or emergency stop button. Always use the on/of switch.

Hi Jason,

I always switch off with the on/off switch, I was just meaning that with the lathe, no matter how it is switched off it wont start again if there is any setting on the speed control, were as the mill will.

Edited By Ron Laden on 24/10/2018 15:47:46

Edited By Ron Laden on 24/10/2018 15:50:05

Morning guys

Warco do a 100mm horizonta/vertical rotary table for £56, maybe the price says it all I dont know.

I know nothing about the tables and it must be very basic at the price, but if it serves a purpose and gives me an added approach on the mill I wonder. I can think of a number of jobs coming up where it could be useful.

What do you guys think worth a go or leave it alone..?

Buy a bigger rotary table than you think you'll need. It's suprising how much of the diameter can be taken up with clamps. Personally I prefer a parallel hole in the centre rather than a Morse taper. Makes it easier to indicate on and much easier to make quick 'n' dirty arbors to align the work.

Andrew

Ron,

I am with Andrew on this one. I originally bought a 4" rotary table for my mini mill. One of the worst purchases I made! I used it while I didn't have anything else but it was very limited and to be honest not well made. The worst thing about the particular one I got was the single screw to lock the table acts on the side of the table and the register it acts on as well as the bearings are not well or accurately machined so if you nip up the screw to lock it, the table gets pushed sideways out of kilter by about 8 thou - absolutely hopeless! I ended up getting a 6" Warco rotary table that came with the dividing attachment and plates. Since having the 6" the original has not been out of the box. The clamps on the Warco act downwards so no issues with moving it out of alignment. Also as Andrew says lots more options for clamping things down. I am not proud when it comes to budget level tooling and have generally got reasonable results but the small rotary table was a complete waste of money. Even if it had been better manufactured and generally fit for purpose I would have still outgrown it. Get the biggest you can fit on the machine and if you can get one with the dividing kit thrown in, go for that, even if you don't think you will need it now.

Paul.

I have the Warco 6" and an X2 mill.

I think a 5" would be a better match, the 6" is strictly too large for the mill, although I suspect that really it just LOOKS too big. Does need a bit of help/ingenuity with clamping arrangements.

You do get a lot for your dollars though, and it seems to be better made than some of the smaller ones I've seen at various shows, certainly a lot smoother.

Neil

Thanks Neil I will look into finding a larger one.

One thing I have done on the mill is mark off the approximate speeds on the control knob scale, it doesnt have a DRO and at £100 I would rather spend the money on tooling, like a rotary table for instance.

I have a digital tacho so with a reflective strip stuck to the spindle I measured off the various speeds and marked up the scale. Its not precise but it gets you in the right ball park it depends on where you position the knob relative to the scale but its within 50 rpm.

The topic of rotary table size came up on one of the other forums some years ago. An experienced machinist used the smallest one he had - a six inch one I believe - and added a supplementary alloy table for larger jobs. The reason being weight, even the six inch versions are quite heavy. We had a ten inch where I used to work and that was ****** heavy!

Thanks Vic, funny you should say that, there is a couple of jobs on the traction engine which would need a 4 inch internal radius which would mean the part mounted outside of the 100mm table on the small rotary I was considering.

It crossed my mind to make a larger add on table, although a 4 inch radius its not such a large part so an extension plate large enough for mounting the part could work.

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 28/10/2018 09:10:18

As a rule of thumb the rotary table should overhang the table by a small amount. For example my mill table is 9" wide and I have a 12" rotary table, which feels about right. I wouldn't want it to be any larger. Another point, if you can get one that can be mounted horizontally and vertically. It can be useful:

Andrew

Thanks Andrew,

My table is 145mm so probably a 5 inch rotary would be about right, Neil thinks the 6 inch on the X2 is a bit big. Point taken re the horizontal and vertical mounting, I can see how that would be useful as your photo shows.

Ron

Facemills..? Would I be correct in thinking that face mills even in the smaller sizes are just too heavy duty for mini-mills.

They look really robust tools but I guess they need some decent power to drive or at least more than most of the smaller mills can offer, probably more machine rigidity too..?

Ron