My Atlas Milling Machine, cleanup and upgrades

cjtoombs said:
For a small machine, I think these little Atlas mills are speced out pretty well. They are certainly more machine than the Chinese mini mills, since they include the power feed, but they also have a very useful speed range. That seems to me the biggest problem with the X1 and X2 size mini mills, they top out at 2500 rpm, and with the cutters they are capable of using, they should be capable of running much faster. The only small horizontal mill that I have seen for sale new is the G0727. Just reading the specifications, I can already spot two major problems with it. First, it only comes with a 5/8" arbor. Good luck finding tooling for that. 1" seems to be fairly easy, I have found some 7/8", but it isn't as plentiful as the 1". Also, it's lowest speed is 200 RPM. I guess if you use very small cutters, that will work, but a 4" HSS cutter in mild steel needs to run at around 100 rpm. That means you are fairly limited in the cutter sizes you can use for horizontal milling, and the 2000 rpm high speed runs into the same problem as mentioned earlier for the X1 and X2 size mills. Of course, it's fairly easy for the Atlas to have more features than a $500 mini mill, considering that new they cost an inflation adjusted $5000+.
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# Not to hijack the thread but I have the GO 727 and after a few modifications I love it, You are correct about the arbor I made a new one for 7/8 cutters no big deal and as for the speed I have used it with the stock motor and I would agree it is to fast and since I am lazy I made another motor with spindle mount that pemanetly stays there. I had an Atlas there a little weak in the upper bar hence the brace after thought the 727 is much more beefier in that area. Anyway nice rebuild on the Atlas you will enjoy it.

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=17130
 
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Iron man,
Nice mod to that little machine, sounds like you have fixed the problems designed into it. I agree that the dovetail style overarm support would be better, that is a nice feature of that mill. Mine is one of the earlier ones that i didn't have the tie bar that would go between the overarm support and the y axis handle support. I haven’t cut anything with it yet, so we will see what kind of cut's I can take. It's unfortunate that you have to modify the Chinese tools to make them useful; one would think that the manufacturer would have figured this out and made these mods, as many of them would add little to no cost to the equipment if done during manufacture.
 
cjtoombs said:
Iron man,
Nice mod to that little machine, sounds like you have fixed the problems designed into it. I agree that the dovetail style overarm support would be better, that is a nice feature of that mill. Mine is one of the earlier ones that i didn't have the tie bar that would go between the overarm support and the y axis handle support. I haven’t cut anything with it yet, so we will see what kind of cut's I can take. It's unfortunate that you have to modify the Chinese tools to make them useful; one would think that the manufacturer would have figured this out and made these mods, as many of them would add little to no cost to the equipment if done during manufacture.
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Thanks I have done a lot of mods to the machine to clean up the mis-engineering. You are correct they seem to stop short of making a good machine at an affordable price just for a couple inches of cast iron. On the Atlas just make sure the gibs are a little snug and that the Acme screw and nuts are in good shape and you will have a lot of fun. Ray

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=14035
 
Great job CJ! ... The bearing seal idea is awsome.

I a future artical I would like to see more of the Planer I see in the back ground of one of the pics.
 
Restorer said:
Great job CJ! ... The bearing seal idea is awsome.

I a future artical I would like to see more of the Planer I see in the back ground of one of the pics.
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Retrofitting lip seals is an excellent idea but be sure and give some thought to oil circulation. You want to be sure oil can get to both the front side of the bearing and to the inside lip of the seal.
 
John,
My plan was to fill it up with oil above the bottom of the inner lip seals. Unfortunately, it's sort of hard to tell where the oil level is. Hindsight being what it is, I probably should have drilled a hole somewhere so that I could fill the oil up till it ran out the hole, then pluged the hole.
 
cjtoombs said:
John,
My plan was to fill it up with oil above the bottom of the inner lip seals. Unfortunately, it's sort of hard to tell where the oil level is. Hindsight being what it is, I probably should have drilled a hole somewhere so that I could fill the oil up till it ran out the hole, then pluged the hole.
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Cant you just pack the bearing like a wheel bearing the seal is a good idea. Ray
 
I suppose you could pack it like a wheel bearing. I put mine together dry then squirted oil in the oil holes. It would be way messier to put together, which is a challenge anyway. I think the vent hole idea is looking better, but I don't know where the heck to put it on that casting.
 
John Hasler said:
I'd be reluctant to pack a bearing that was designed to run in oil. Also, I think he'd need another seal to do that.
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The bearing is no different than a wheel bearing and does not spin as fast or have near the load it also appears to have two seals otherwise how would it hold oil. Ray
 
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