Using my drill press as a mill

Moparfever said:
I use an x-y milling table. Way more stable than an x-y drilling vise. Notice one says drilling and the other says milling?
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So you use something like this: http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_focus.php?Focus=X-Y+Tables ?

I'm currently using This drop of shart: http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Cross-Dri...6?pt=BI_Tool_Work_Holding&hash=item2a25bd385c Says "milling" but I think they should delete that word.

Also looking into milling attachment for the lathe
 
strantor said:
I'm currently using This drop of shart: http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Cross-Dri...6?pt=BI_Tool_Work_Holding&hash=item2a25bd385c Says "milling" but I think they should delete that word.
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Yeah, I have one of those. Not even worth the $20 I paid for it, the ways are about 5° out of perpendicular and it shakes and wiggles when I use it. At that, it's better than my first milling attempt 25 years ago when I C-clamped the workpiece to the moving jaw of a cheap HF drill press vise...
 
I was just reading this and a lesson from my old college days came back to me. It is said that when an aircraft crashes it is rare if never that just one thing is to blame. It takes a series of failures such as a broken bolt was not caught by maintenance / inspection and the new pilot’s inexperience kept him/her from recovering from the sharp decent. Remove any one of those and the plane would land safely.
At the beginning of this thread we had a lively discussion about Small end mills 3/8" with light cuts in soft metals and the high importance of rigidity that will be lacking in a drill press. A four flute 1/2" roughing end mill can be tough for mini mills (.6 max end mill capacity for LMS mini mills) and will crash in climb milling even at light depths of feed. If you used a piece of aluminum to make your T nut with it might have been ok. The big one is that vice. It is designed to be a down pressure drilling vice and horribly poor one at that. I wish I had a old photo to show you, but this is similar what I used to use. http://www.shars.com/products/view/372/Heavy_Duty_Mill_amp_Drill_Table I still had to add gibb locks to it to lock it down before making a cut.
Don’t sweat it though!:phew: I doubt that anyone here with any time machining can say that they never have slung something across the shop ONCE or had a close call doing something they knew in the back of their mind may not turn out good. Do this too many times and the law of averages will get you though.
 
Hey Strantor


First, I don't blame you for trying. I did the same thing about 20 years ago. Same nasty drill press vice.

And worse, it was a tongue'd Morse #2 spindle! No drawbar! Bad idea!! I lost the chuck and bit once! But I didn't even have a lathe at that time to try to adapt.

Anyway- quick questions.

-You say you actually tossed the vice. I wonder if this was part of the problem? Was it bolted down properly?

-I wonder if your screws were adjusted properly for the backlash? We're the screws in the compound vice turned the right way to accommodate conventional milling (pulling in the screw)? That might explain why climb milling appeared smoother (pushing against the screw).
You would have to set the screw, and spin it -backward- until it stopped to keep it from feeding in (I think?)

-Also- for this setup, I don't see .009 as a really light cut with a 1/2 inch mill. Especially in what looks like steel T-nut. (Steel, right?). I would try .003 in aluminum first.


Also- I would ABsoLUTEly do SOMETHING to adapt your lathe in the meantime. Absolutely better set up for the different forces involved.


Bernie
 
itsme_Bernie said:
Hey Strantor


First, I don't blame you for trying. I did the same thing about 20 years ago. Same nasty drill press vice.

And worse, it was a tongue'd Morse #2 spindle! No drawbar! Bad idea!! I lost the chuck and bit once! But I didn't even have a lathe at that time to try to adapt.
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Haha, I would like to have seen that!
itsme_Bernie said:
Anyway- quick questions.

-You say you actually tossed the vice. I wonder if this was part of the problem? Was it bolted down properly?
Click to expand...
Not at all. It was held down with C-clamps.
itsme_Bernie said:
-I wonder if your screws were adjusted properly for the backlash? We're the screws in the compound vice turned the right way to accommodate conventional milling (pulling in the screw)? That might explain why climb milling appeared smoother (pushing against the screw).
You would have to set the screw, and spin it -backward- until it stopped to keep it from feeding in (I think?)
Click to expand...
Yes the screws had quite a bit of backlash, maybe half a turn. I noticed an improvement when I took the slack out as you describe here, but still scary.
itsme_Bernie said:
-Also- for this setup, I don't see .009 as a really light cut with a 1/2 inch mill. Especially in what looks like steel T-nut. (Steel, right?). I would try .003 in aluminum first.
Click to expand...
yes it was steel. I should have tried aluminum first, but I don't think I'm going to try anything like that now.
itsme_Bernie said:
Also- I would ABsoLUTEly do SOMETHING to adapt your lathe in the meantime. Absolutely better set up for the different forces involved.


Bernie
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I am. I'm eyeballing the compound slide on my big ol' project lathe. It just so happens to be the exact same size as my wilton vise. I'm thinking, maybe bolt the vise to the compound, turn it up 90 degrees so the handwheel is in the air, move it across the room to my Logan and find a way to mount it, and I've got a milling attachment.
 
"yes it was steel. I should have tried aluminum first, but I don't think I'm going to try anything like that now."

Hah hah! I know- it only takes once!


Bernie
 
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