Quill feed milling machine

Just trying to settle on what make of vertical milling machine I would like so have been doing some reading. I notice that not all vertical mills have a quill feed. How much of an issue is this for the model engineer? If I have power feed on the vertical axis is it even needed?

Thanks

Colin

If you can tilt the head but don’t have a quill feed you can still only do vertical movements

Dave

I do 99% of my drilling on the vertical mill and it would be a real PITA not to have a proper quill feed. I use the knee when milling to precise depths, but not for drilling. My mill has a quill handle like a pillar drill, a precise feed wheel and power downfeed on the quill. I don't use power downfeed very often, but it is useful when there are a lot of deep holes needed in order to remove waste material:

Andrew

My littler mill has a knee and no quill. My biggerer mill has both.

You can’t thread on one without a quill - unless you have a variable precision power lift for the bed!

Reaching distant places can be an issue - much longer tooling might be required - without a quill.

Compare the prices of vertical heads for a Centec? The non-quill are a good addition to a horizontal-only machine, but the MkIII heads (with quill) usually fetch well over twice as much as the former. That is a good indicator?

Angled machining with a quill is easy enough, but one really needs a tilting table or vise for the non-quill head.

Might be more…

Edited By not done it yet on 20/10/2021 11:39:36

From long experience I advise getting a mill with a quill feed, drilling without one is a real nightmare.

Tony

Thanks everyone. Sounds like I've started my down selection, needs a quill.

Cheers

Colin

I'm not sure a £1000 difference is worth the quill. Prices have gone more than a little silly just now.

Thats impressive

Can you tell us how you cut between the drill holes?

...or is it close enough to tease out?

Edited By Ady1 on 20/10/2021 13:42:25

For the average model engineer the quill type spindle is the most useful,look for a mill with a useable amount of clearance between spindle nose and table,so that a drill can be held by a chuck in the spindle and there is enough space to allow for the height for a vice and workpiece,most quill heads can be tilted in one direction,mills like a Bridgeport can tilt in both directions ,some mills only tilt to 45 degrees, tilting heads have to be regularly checked to ensure that they have not tited accidentally due to side pressure on a cutter when milling,know as tramming.Go for a mill that has plenty of x,y,and z travel ,its all too easy to set up a job on a small machine and run out of travel or table space.

I didn't need to. The number of holes and drill size, on a pre-determined PCD, were chosen so that the holes overlapped by a few thou. After drilling a sharp tap with a nylon faced mallet was enough to break any remaining webs and for the core to fall out.

Andrew