Re-registering A Round Column Mill

[Bill W.]

After buying this mill, I realized maybe I should have researched a little more before I plunked down the money. This is a bench top mill with a round column. What is the best way to dial in the spindle once you you have raised or lowered the head?

 

[RJSakowski]

What I would do would be to place a pin in the spindle and bring it into contact with a reference face like the side of the vise. Raise or lower the head and adjust the spindle and swing the head to contact the reference again. This should be done along the x axis. It will get you fairly close. For better accuracy, you can use a dial indicator and adjust for the same reading before and after. The spindle should be locked or otherwise restrained from rotating. The head is rotated from left to right to get the reading on the dial indicator. When you tighten the head, you might get a small shift in the reading. You will be fairly close if you adjust your x axis and note the displacement and use that to reset your x axis.

 

[Bill W.]

R J
Thanks for the info... I realized that not being able to raise and lower the table, as soon as I loosen the head on the spindle, there goes everything.

Thanks again,
Bill

 

[stupoty]

I normaly use an edge finder or a pin in the chuck to relocate a feture on a part.

Stuart

 

[Dorn]

I have one of these round column mill/drills. With a little bit of planning I find that I mostly don't have to move the head up or down much in the middle of a project. When it is unavoidable, the methods above work well enough. Another method is to fix a small "pointer" laser to the head and have it shining on the opposite wall. Put a mark on the wall as your "zero". With modest care that will get you within a few thousandths almost immediately.

A good resource for these kinds of machines is the Yahoo news group:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MILL_DRILL/info

Somebody who has documented lots of work on his mill/drill is Rick Sparber:
http://rick.sparber.org/

 

[Bill W.]

Stuart and Dorn... Thank you for your comments, I read somewhere about the laser pointer method, I may try that one. I will first try to set the mill up where (as you mentioned) to have the head positioned to make changes between drilling and milling without having to raise or lower. I am a newbie and your comments are greatly appreciated... Thanks again.

Bill

 

[Paul in OKC]

I had the Harbor Freight version of one of those for a few years. Like Dorn said, a little planning and you can avoid raising or lowering the head in the middle of a project. If I had milling and drilling to do, I tried to use collets for the drills so I wouldn't need the room required for a drill chuck. What I did was to turn the shanks of the drills to the nearest collet size. Worked like a charm.

 

[stupoty]

I had the Harbor Freight version of one of those for a few years. Like Dorn said, a little planning and you can avoid raising or lowering the head in the middle of a project. If I had milling and drilling to do, I tried to use collets for the drills so I wouldn't need the room required for a drill chuck. What I did was to turn the shanks of the drills to the nearest collet size. Worked like a charm.

Iv'e got an er collet chuck for mine, saved hitting the draw bar (mines a morse taper) i like the step less clamping, i tend to only hold stuff in the collet chuck and don't use the drill chuck, helps a lot with not raising or lowering the head so much.

If im drilling some holes that will require the head to go up i spot drill them all first and step up the drill size or locate using the drill bit if it's ok for a losser tolerance thing.

Figuring out the optimal order of doing things is always fun

Stuart

Also figure out what the shortest tool your using is before starting

 

[Bill W.]

I had the Harbor Freight version of one of those for a few years. Like Dorn said, a little planning and you can avoid raising or lowering the head in the middle of a project. If I had milling and drilling to do, I tried to use collets for the drills so I wouldn't need the room required for a drill chuck. What I did was to turn the shanks of the drills to the nearest collet size. Worked like a charm.

This is a HF mill also. It is the green one, model 33686. I do have a set of R8 collets for it and I also ordered a set of machine screw (stubby) drill bits. I think with some careful planning, I should be ok. I am a newbie but with all you guys sharing your knowledge, maybe I can avoid some errors to start with.

Thank you... Bill

 

[TC0853]

Iv'e got an er collet chuck for mine, saved hitting the draw bar (mines a morse taper) i like the step less clamping, i tend to only hold stuff in the collet chuck and don't use the drill chuck, helps a lot with not raising or lowering the head so much.

If im drilling some holes that will require the head to go up i spot drill them all first and step up the drill size or locate using the drill bit if it's ok for a losser tolerance thing.

Figuring out the optimal order of doing things is always fun

Stuart

Also figure out what the shortest tool your using is before starting

The idea about using the collets in the spindle gives you back that room that you would lose with the drill Chuck in there. It's true that you can chuck any size drill bit in an ER collet, but they take up most of that room that you've gained by not using the drill Chuck, whereas if you resize your drill bit shanks so you can fit your bits into the spindle collets you've gained the maximum room. IMHO.