Tormach Spindle adaptor and bracket for a Kress spindle for the Tormach mill.

The Standard Tormach PCNC CNC Mill is limited to a maximum spindle speed of 5000RPM which is fine for most milling jobs except when it comes to engraving cutters and small end mills between 1-3mm dia. A Kress spindle and bracket is available from Tormach but by the time import duties are paid it is over expensive. Kress spindles are available in the UK at a reasonable price so I thought I would buy one and make my own mount for the mill.

I started making it from steel but suffered a mishap when it shifted while being machined and the job was ruined. I had a re-think and decided the being the spindle would only be subjected to light loads so Aluminium would be ok for the job.

I need to make a register ring for mounting the spindle parallel to the the main spindle to ensure that it sits squarely on the main spindle nose and keeps the Kress spindle clear of the main spindle guard but other than that it seems to have turned out OK.

I am waiting for some collets for the Kress to arrive and when they do I will give it a try.

Edited By JasonB on 01/04/2016 08:23:06

Once again nice work Bob, your kit makes me drool.

Predictive text is a nuisance. For Superbly in the titles read "Superfly" Oh' & thanks Chris.

Bob,

Please forgive me for hi-jacking your thread; but it seems a good place to ask this question:

Someone is advertising Kress drilling spindles on homeworkshop, at what looks like a very reasonable price ... but I can find no information about this model, on the Kress website.

Does anyone have experience of model FM 6955 ... Would I be correct in assuming that this is a lightweight [drilling] machine rather than one built to the usual high [milling/routing] Kress standard

MichaelG.

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Edited By Michael Gilligan on 01/04/2016 10:42:17

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 01/04/2016 10:44:42

Michael,

I can tell you about these spindles as I bough some a few years ago with some routers off the same guy.

They are new old stock and noting wrong with them other than wrong plug fitted. Main problem if youcan call it taht is they are only single speed and quite noisy at high revs but I just bought one of these 500w variable speed units off Ebay from China for a fiver and wired the plug thru that.

They do have decent spindle bearings and I used one on my router for about 3 years before I got one of ARC high speed spindles. They do have their own type of collets but Lester Caine sells these.

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Thanks, John ... useful info. much appreciated.

I have no qualms about adding a speed-control; was just concerned that the bearings and/or flanges might not be up to the side-loads of milling.

If they're tough enough for your router ...

MichaelG.

Hi Michael,

John seems to have answered your question and I think, on reflection, that I might well have gone for one of the cheaper Chinese spindles as they seem to be good value for money.

One thing I noticed in the Kress literature is that although described as "Milling" spindles in the small print somewhere they seem to indicate that they are not suitable for cutting metal. We shall see. I know one thing for sure I shall have to make sure the coolant is switched off auto when I use it and also will have to watch for metal cuttings getting into the open cooling vents around the motor.

I never had any problems cutting metal but it was always with small cutters hence needing the high speed.

This is one example.

That brass strip is 3/4" wide to give an idea of the fineness of the letters.

Bob and John

Thanks to you both

MichaelG.

Bob,

Very intersting but could you get a fixed camera? The always varying angle plays hell with my ability to watch what is going on.

Kwil,

I do have a tripod for my camera but unfortunately just about every time I go to use it with the camera the battery is flat, so on this occasion and indeed on one or two others I reverted to my phone camera, hence the shaky nature and odd camera angles (there is only one way you can mount the camera on the tripod)

For anyone interested in the FM 6955

I've found a copy of the [multilingual] user manual, here.

MichaelG.

Michael, I get a 404 error when trying your link, could be my computer I guess.

Emgee

Sorry, emgee

Try this, which is [hopefully] 'one page back'

MichaelG.