- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
- Messages
- 91
I have a small, 8x30 vertical mill in the shop. The work capacity is limited due to short travel of the knee. Using a 6" vise doesn't help, it's a large vise for a small machine. I decided it needed a riser block between the head and column. I started with a 8" diameter by 4" chunk of aluminum. Turned each end to mate with the mill. I have heard others say that their mill did not have a equally spaced hole pattern, making hole location more difficult. Mine was equally spaced so it was no problem. I had to be creative to turn it on my 12 x 36 lathe, a 8" dia workpiece would not swing over the cross slide. Final OD was 7.700 to match the mill casting. I ended up gaining 3.5" in capacity. I have a second mill so didn't have to reassemble the mill just to drill the hole pattern. Parallelism of the two locating surfaces ended up at .0005. I previously shimmed the head .001 to tram the mill properly so I was hoping this might help me make up for that. When I installed the riser it was out .001. I rotated the riser 120 degrees and it trammed within .0002.
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