Depth stop for Champion 16 mill/drill

Hi,

I'm considering making a depth stop for my Champion 16 mill/drill.

Just wondered if anyone has already produced one?

It must make life a lot easier when drilling blind holes.

Les

How about something like this Les 

Edited By Nobby on 15/12/2015 15:16:52

I put a digital scale on my mill. Fairly straightforward fitting.

Thanks for the photo Nobby, I would be happy with threaded stud and adjusting nut at the moment.

I will keep the clock and DRO in mind when making the bracket, thanks Vic.

Cheers

Threaded stud sounds a good way to go but in practice is over engineering things. Takes forever to wind the nuts up and down. My big Pollard 15 AY has a simple round rod with a split clamp on it. Loosen clamp, slide into position and lock. Much faster and easier. There is a deep engraved scale on the rod to hep setting but its not that easy to read.

My experience is that scales on depth stop rods never get beyond sort of OK. The Chester Lux type mill I used to have came with a monumentally frustrating depth stop consisting of a threaded rod loosely fitted into a collar on the quill with a knurled rod underneath to turn the screw driving a Tee shaped nut up and down in a slot in the front panel of the head. Pointer on the nut indicated positions via a rather nice scale on the panel. The various clearances involved made setting very much a miss-miss-miss- hit or curse affair. I replaced the screw with a fixed rod, drilled the Tee nut out for a wing headed bolt so it could slide up and down easily. Put a copper slug under the bolt to prevent damage to the rod. Worked a treat.

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I imagine something similar could easily be arranged by fitting a plate to carry a laser printed scale.

The need it now super fast scale bodge is to clamp an ordinary ruler or even pocket tape measure in position. Heard of one 3 cable ties and tape measure set-up that was used for several years in "I'll do a proper job when I get time" mode.

Clive.

PS poxy auto spell check!

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 11:55:13

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 11:55:39

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 11:56:17

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 11:57:16

Thanks Clive, I like the idea of a rod and sliding clamp, I know what mean about winding the nuts up and down.

Cheers

Les

Here's a £10 idea from one of the forums.

Thanks Vic that looks a great idea.

Cheers

Les

Be warned Les, some of those scales can be tough to drill! I think I used a small glass drill to make a hole in one of them once.

This is the split clamp on a rod style stop on the Fredr'ck Pollard 15 AY pillar drill. Scale not as clear as it could be. Clamp bolt currently a socket head cap screw which I've been meaning to replace with something finger friendly for best part of a decade. Don't use it much and don't have anything suitable in the box so ..

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The modified calliper and similar vertical scale devices make nice quill depth scales but every fitment I've seen always gets in the way of things to some extent. The popular Quillstar and clone fitments on Bridgeport heads cover the stop adjustment nuts so you pretty much have to choose between a really nice depth scale and (relatively) easy depth / power feed stop setting. Not that the standard Bridgeport setting process is particularly quick and easy at the best of times.

Way back I put a BW Electronics pull wire system on my quill. Had to run the wire over a pully 'cos it came out the wrong side but its still the neatest and least intrusive system I've seen.

.

Often wondered if there is a way to do a similar out of the way cable style operation on one of the cheap scales. Or maybe its possible to rip the electronics and thimble rotation sensor out of a digital micrometer and drive it via a spring tensioned endless cord system as used on the big old valve radios like mum & dad, or granny & granddad, used to have.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 20:07:39

Edited By Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 20:09:05

That's very neat Clive, not seen anything like that before.

I faced a similar dilemma when I added a depth stop to my Centec VH. I used a threaded rod with a pair of Tilt-Nuts for the actual stop. The tilt-nuts have the useful property that, when tilted they "unlock" from the threaded rod and can be moved up and down easily; they re-engage with it when un-tilted. In use, the lower one lowered to the stop block, which orients it to engage the thread. The top one is the lowered until it meets the lower one, which orients it to engage the thread when they can be locked together.

Thanks for posting Gary. For anyone else who's never heard of Tilt Nuts here's some more information.

**LINK**

Thanks Gary,

I've an idea in mind which would need a clamp on the quill shaft as in the photos, using a plain vertical rod and a sliding clamp to adjust the depth. I would need to arc weld a bracket on the casting for the clamp to stop on.

This will take me a long time to produce anything worth showing.

Thank you to everyone for your help and advice.

Cheers

Les