Lathe Mill Combo setup

Hi I have just bought a Lathe Mill combo and it is currently set with a rotating tool holder that was holding a 20mm tool. Testing its center it appears to be 14mm so is packing a 12mm higher the only way to get the cutter tool correct. Also what sort of vice attachment works on the lathe to allow the mill to be used?

Thanks

Hi Owen welcome to the forum but a little more information would be helpful. A name and model would help and if possible a picture or two nay help. To help you there is a how to web page on here, look at top of this page to black band and click forums then click website FAQ tab I hope this helps.

David

Hi All, the Lath Mill combo is a BB 22A Cutting Machine made by Beike Machine Tool Factory.

This is the box of parts that came with it a Collet set, 4 jaw chuck, faceplate 2 steadies, changewheels, tailstock drill chuck and spare jaws for the 3 jaw.

I bought a set of 12mm tools and that's whats in the second picture but it was still leaving a little nob on the end. Bought a whole series of Workshop practice books and nothing talks about getting the tool to match the centre or how to set up the mill on a lathe set. Most talk about verticle vices and milling with the lathe.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Owen.

Yes you need to put packing under the tool shank to bring its cutting edge to centre height, standard operating procedure. Should be described in one of your books if it covers turning properly. Use strips of aluminium or similar.

For milling you need to bolt a tee-slotted plate or a machine vice on to the cross slide in place of the topslide, or a vice on top of the plate. I would have thought that at least the plate should be part of the spares kit. Looks like quite a tidy and useful machine.

Just to add that the cross slide top seems to be very wide which supports the idea there should be a tee-slotted plate. Probably a Myford boring table (which would do the same job on an ML7 / Super 7 lathe) would do the trick.

**LINK**

Would the Myford boring table be bolted through to a flat plate under the rails to hold it steady and then would a vice slide into the slots?

Owen, there seems to be 4 tapped holes in the cross slide which would indicate provision for fixing a T-slotted sub table similar to the Myford example, you could possibly use one of these suitably modified to fit your machine. The make of you machine is not evident but its likely if you can find this you may well be able to purchase a dedicated one. Maybe search the usual suppliers for a similar item e.g. **LINK**

For packing tools to height I would recumbent steel shim and if you can find any the steel banding used for holding goods to pallets etc is useful but much of it is now plastic.

Is there a makers name anywhere?

John

the Lath Mill combo is a BB 22A Cutting Machine made by Beike Machine Tool Factory.

What is this that was in the box?

The bottom flat part rotates and there appears to be two tee bolts inside it, viewed through the outside hole on the bottom when rotated.

Owen, probably worth removing the top slide -- the one with the 4-way tool box on it and post a photo of the cross slide then we can see what's there, it does look as though a sub table will be needed

John

That's a machine vice! It may or may not be designed for the lathe, if you take the topslide off and compare you may find that the vice will bolt down instead.

A slotted table may well be more useful than a vice as it gives more ways to clamp down the work. That one from ARC looks quite useful. Myford ones will generally be used now as I don't think they are in current production.

Just to add, you need to clamp the vice or table on to the cross slide, as it's that which allows you to move it in the X and Y directions. Your question about "clamping to the rails" implies you may have thought it would clamp to the lathe bed.

That's your missing milling vice. If you turn that square shaft sticking out the left hand end in the pic, the moveable jaw will open. The fixed jaw appears to be a two-piece type than can grip either straight/square jobs, round jobs or odd shaped jobs as the two parts of the fixed jaw pivot.

The base appears to be made so it can bolt to a T-slotted plate that would be bolted on to the cross slide once the top slide has been removed. The two small half-rounded blocks on the base drop into the T slot. Then two T-bolts stick up from the table through the slots in the vice and then two nuts are tightened down on top to hold the vice firm.

I'm sure I have seen T-slotted plates for sale somewhere, maybe one of the suppliers that advertise on this site? That would be cheaper than a Myford cross slide jury rigged up.

The graduated dial above the vice base is to swivel it so you can mill at an angle or do simple dividing such as drilling a circle of six holes in a flange etc.

Is there a hand wheel on the lead screw - far RDS of the machine, this would enable movement of the carriage when the half nuts are engaged.

Sorry I don't know what " hand wheel on the lead screw - far RDS of the machine" means.

A bit fuzzy but I assume the leadscrew is the threaded part that can auto run and be manually turned. Its turned on and off by the black handled lever above the green button the lever on the right is a steel punch that clicks in or out to turn it forward or backwards.

Looks like posting gremilns got in on the act. "far RDS" should have been far RHS ie at the right hand end of the lathe. Such a handwheel would carry graduations, either directly or on an adjustable collar, like those on teh cross and top slide handles. So when the half nuts are engaged the saddle can be moved by known amounts to make cuts.

Broken hacksaw blades with the teeth ground off are another good source of shim material. You can also get colour coded plastic shim sheet sets.

Back when I started normal practice was to set tool tip height by testing on the machine, adding and subtracting shims as required. These days I'd arrange something to measure the actual tip height on the bench and put the appropriate thickness of shims in. Probably more ways of doing the measurement than there are folk to do it. Proper way is a dial test indicator on its stand with an "elephants foot" relatively large diameter flat on the end instead of teh usual small ball probe. But that gets expensive.

Quick, dirty and cheap is to pivot a ruler via the hole in its end and measure the height of the far end against another ruler. If you use a 6" ruler and put the tool tip at the 5" graduation the movement at the end will be 5 x that at the tip. Easy enough to estimate to 0.25 mm or so. Call it 0.1 mm at the tip which is probably goo enough. In practice if you fiddle about to get the set up so the pivoting ruler is dead level at the correct tip height and dead on a graduation line on the other ruler you can do better. This picture shows the idea, albeit for a slightly different purpose as a bevel protractor substitute.

If you are using insert tooling doing your measurements once and relying on the inserts being made the same size should be good enough.

If you are grinding your own its not a bad idea to have a tool tip height gauge to verify that things are correct when installed. Many many different designs. I like the optical type as its simple to make accurately and, if fitted with a mirror at 45°, can be used at some distance from the tool tip. Very handy when a job gets in the way. Basically a thick sheet of perspex or similar transparent material held vertically on a base with a line scribed on both sides at centre height. When tool tip and both lines align its on centre. I put two sets of lines on mine. One for the base on the lathe bed and one for on the cross slide. Mine is too thin really. Only 6 mm thick. 8 or 10 would have been better. But it was what I had and works OK.

Clive

Yes there is a handwheel. With luck it will have a graduated collar on it. You engage the leadscrew with the lever on the right of the carriage but normally have it disengaged from the gears in the headstock. Then the milling X feed is by the handwheel on the leadscrew and the Y feed is by the crossfeed. I suggest that you spend some time reading basic lathe books like "The Amateur's Lathe" just to learn the terminology and how your machine works. It would save a lot of basic explanation here.

It looks like a Clone of an EMCO Maximat 11. You do indeed need a sub plate for doing work with the Millinghead. I have seen these for sale from tool suppliers,

Regarding packing for tool height,I use whatever is to hand

Old saw blades

Beer cans [empty ]

Offcuts of sheet steel or Ali.

Sometimes even "Proper "shim !

The list is endless and everyone does it,since not. everyone has QCTP,s

It,s been around for years,it,s cheap and it works,