Looking To Tool-up My Burke #4 Mill, Need Advice

thenrie

thenrie

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I have some projects in mind for the Burke #4 I recently acquired. I have almost no tooling at all and just about that much experience with a milling machine. I need some advice on what kinds of cutters, end mills, face mills, etc, I will be best off with for my machine's size/capabilities with regard to my projects.

The first major project I'm likely to do is to make a T-slot cross slide for my South Bend 9A lathe. I'll need a 60* dovetail cutter, a face mill or fly cutter, and a side cutting bit, and a T-slot cutter. The cross slide is made from a rough casting of iron. See Metal Lathe Accessories

at http://www.statecollegecentral.com/metallathe/index.html

I'd also like to make the MLA toolpost for my lathe, which will require a slitting saw.

Then there is always the squaring up and cleaning up of other metal pieces for other projects.

I currently have 1/2" and 5/8" end mill holders and a 1" horizontal arbor (with no key slot), so I'm starting pretty much from scratch.

I need recommendations for what kinds of cutters will work best and what to stay away from.
 
Hi Tony. Does your machine have a B&S #9 spindle, or what?
 
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention that. It has the B&S #9 spindle. I do not have the vertical head for it...wish I did.

IMG_1813 (1).jpg
 
I've had terrible experiences buying Chinese import end mills from Grizzly Tools. Some have lasted only 4 or 5 minutes minutes. Real junk mostly.

So I went to shopping on eBay, and surprisingly found good prices and good quality tooling. Mostly because I wentfor US or European manufacturer. Look at the photographs closely and move on if you see obvious signs of hard use- seems to work ok for me.

Regards
Glenn
 
Thanks. I've been wondering about those chinese tools. I bought two different sets of small end mills for my lathe, both made in China. One set cuts very well, the other set didn't last through one single keyway.
 
The other thing you might want to do, Tony, is to get an adapter from B&S 9 to MT2 so you can fit more common tooling as well. You can buy end mills with MT2 shanks easier and cheaper than the B&S tooling.
 
That's a good idea. I think I'll look at that. I have been thinking about buying a B&S9 to ER32 collet adapter, since the ER32 collets are so much less expensive than even the 3C collets my South Bend uses.
 
Tony:
I've seen straight shank ER holders, but haven't seen any ER to B&S9.
If you happen to find one, please let us know how it works out.
TomKro
 
They might make an adapter from B&S 9 to MT3 as well, not sure.
 
Tomkro, there is a fellow on the Burke Yahoo group who has had a bunch of B&S9 ER collet holders made in Asia and is marketing them on eBay. The ER32 is $80 +SH. Search B&S 9 on eBay and it will pop up.

Bob, I have been watching for an MT3 adapter, but haven't yet come across one. That would allow me to share some of the tooling between the lathe and mill.

Questions about face mills. There are a couple face mills on eBay right now that I'm wondering about. One is a 6" indexable head that uses a 2-1/2" arbor. There is also a B&S9 arbor that will fit it. The 6" face mill would cover that MLA T-slot cross slide surfacing job in one pass. Is that face mill size too large for the Burke #4, or would it handle it with light passes? Would that be better than using a smaller face mill in several passes, then follow with a larger fly-cutter to give a nice finish? Would a fly-cutter alone do the job of surfacing cast iron?
 
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