Milling machine

Just a thought on a Grizzly mill. Yes, Chinese, I've purchased two bench top machines and found them to be quite good. They have a model G0757 vertical and horizontal combo that might fill the bill. They do ship to Canada now, when I bought mine I had to go to Montana to pick them up.
 
colt45cz75 said:
I bought my machinery from Spence Distributors in Winnipeg. It's identical to the Grizzly machines but with a different name , although they don't have the gunsmith models. Some day I might even get good at using them to their potential. I bought a 16x40 lathe and a 9x49 step pulley knee mill. They've done everything I need very well.
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We bought our manual lathe from SPence. They were great to deal with. We later sold it to make room for our Mazak Quickturn CNC lathe. Miss the manual. Will probably be calling Spence again in the future.
 
I use a model 45 mill-drill for my own "hobying" and find it barely adequate in most instances. A lot of jury-rigging of the work piece required most of the time. Would love to have the rigidity offered by the Bridgeport type machines most are talking about here.
Something the "go big or go home" crowd may find interesting on this topic. Last week I visited a friend of mines machine shop in central Alberta. When I walked in the door he had a full track frame from a D8 cat sitting on the bed of his "small mill". After drooling over that for a few minutes he offered to take me down to his new building to look at his new machines...man o man... anybody that has ever made chips should get such an opportunity. His "big" mill has a quill movement of 3 meters, the head has a vertical travel of 12 feet and a longitudinal travel of 14 ft. the 8ft sq table also has a 14 ft logitudinal travel and an 8 ft side travel, giving a work piece total long. travel of 28ft. The table has it's own power rotating mechanism, giving it a 360 deg dividing head capability. Only 3 others known in N.A.
Next up was his "big Lathe". He never said what the bed length was but it had to be 35 feet or more. The headstock end was probably 12 ft high x 12 ft wide x 15 ft long. The 4 jaw chuck was incredible... 12ft in dia and weighs in at 18.5 tons. The tailstock housing is about the size of a delivery truck body and contains the hyd. controlled centering shaft (prob.6 in. in dia.). The machine is rated to handle work pieces up to 148,000 lbs. Only 2 others known in N.A.
 
It's a lot like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, ain't it? :D

For my lathe I started with a Myford when someone actually called me and offered me the machine and tooling for a grand whopping $1000. I jumped in eagerly thinking that it would be just fine for the sort of things I needed in my model airplane hobby. But it turned out that these things really are a toy. Oh sure, the old magazines and today's internet are full of amazing hobby projects done with a Myford. But I found that using these dainty little toys is like whittling out a canoe from a maple tree with a small pocket knife.

So when I tripped over my 12x36 I was quick to step up to a new "heavy" machine. I was totally in love right from the get go. Suddenly my idea of a "heavy" chatterless cut in mild steel changed from .015 to .02 on the Myford (seriously!) to being able to hog off 3/16 at a time on the Longem.

Would I like to have a 16x48 heavy bed machine? YOU BET I WOULD! ! ! ! ! And perhaps it would not be a bad fit in my shop. But anything larger and I'd have to add an extension to the garage to house the machine and still get in the door. After all other things (there's that hobbyist reality again) are fighting for room under the roof as well.

I'm in a similar situation with my mill. I tripped over a deal and a half on a smaller size bench top mill drill. It's annoyingly limiting due to the smaller table and round column but at least it can cut decently for a HOBBY machine. But even with my hobbyist's ability to compromise I still know it's a bit of a toy. I've used it to hog out 1/2D x 1/8 deep slots in a big block of steel that was used to make a new "improved" tool post for my lathe. Yep, it took me 4 passes to get there. But it did the job. And for a hobbyist that's just fine. I've actually used it for a lot of gumsmithing as well so far. But it's all been smaller to medium size projects.

Here it is set up and in the middle of making an aluminium picatinny scope mount for a Cooey 60. The piece is mounted on a steel arbor I made up to hold the block. And yes, as you can see the machine's table is right at its limits with this tooling installed.



So my goal for a "Just Right" machine for my new setup is to get a Grizzly G0757 horizontal/vertical mill. I have no doubts at all that it's light by commercial shop standards. And likely I'll find SOME limitations due to the nature of it being a combination unit. But the ability to run it as a horizontal mill when needed adds a lot of options. And it really opens up the vertical axis for me since up to know I've not been able to think vertically due to the round column on a mill/drill. And with twice the length and more than 4 times the table area I'll feel like I'm mounting stuff to a football field... :D

Would bigger be nicer? Oh certainly. But for me this sort of machine is like the "Baby Bear's Porridge". It's the most I can justify for my financial situation and for room in the garage.

I'm very much a fan of "find what you think you need and get the one bigger". Well, this is already TWO bigger and heavier and more costly than what I think I need and can afford. The lure of the horizontal ability sucked me in over the lighter and less costly G0731 that was my previous target.

Now I'm still keeping my eyes open for an old Bridgeport. But when I look I've yet to find one up for sale. within the lower mainland. If I do find one it would be the way I'd go. But then for you guys working in the commercial shops even a Bridgeport is considered "light". For me it would be MASSIVE!

It's all a case of perspective isn't it?

As a closing comment I just want to say that I fully agree with you guys that bigger is better. You're all 100% right. But you're looking at it from a commercial "time is money" viewpoint. Sadly us hobbyists have to take size and cost into consideration as well. It forces compromises on us.
 
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Aye. Sorta along the lines of the oilfield worker and the watchmaker staring in awe at the 1/4 inch tap on the bench, the watchmaker amazed that they made them so large, the oilfield guy amazed they made them so small...

Cheers
Trev
 
My current mill tops out at 1600, pretty slow for small endmills. I get by with no problems. Hobby machining is not like production where max metal removal is money. It hurts the wallet when things go for s##t.
 
You can buy a decent cnc mill for 15000-20000 used, but a Bridgeport style mill is a great start. I would not pay that much for a manual machine, I'm not doing gun stuff so cnc is more profitable with the work I do. You won't be disapointed if your just a hobby machinist, that machine will outlast your lifetime.
 
SkytopBrewster said:
Here is a link to the Sowa catalogue, pg 9 shows the indexes I am looking at, will find cheaper alternatives but if you were buying would you get the Simple Index or the Super Dex? I think the Super Dex would be the better buy.

http://www.sowatool.com/CDN/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=folder&Itemid=135
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Nope.

:)

Get or build a simple direct indexer for uses where direct indexing will work.
Look at the 5C Spindex type indexers. Cheap like rock soup. Cheap enough to modify to your heart's content. Like this one. b bs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/60225-Modified-Spindex (Link broke to avoid sending traffic to another forum)
Besides, you could use the practice, building your own tools!

Get a rotary table for when you want a rotary table. The B&S style indexing heads with tilt and all that are pretty darn handy too.

If I were spending government money, I'd buy one of the Sowa units and if it didn't work out, I'd not sweat it. For my own money, I would look to spend less than that and track down a nice Hardinge indexing/dividing unit. The Hardinge units sell for around $5K new, but about half what the Sowa is. Check Ebay.

Reality check, A rotary table from China is a pretty good tool, when you are the actual owner, and are reasonably assured that it will be treated with some care.

If you really want a neat little rig, take a look at the Martin castings for the Versatile Dividing head, available out of the US. Nice (very nice!) castings, and not too dear.http://www.martinmodel.com/MMPtools.html

Cheers
Trev
 
Like trevj said or just get a Chinese rotary table and mount a Chinese 4-Jaw chuck to it and learn how to use that for example. It's all I need for hobby use. Long pieces just get clamped at the other end minus the tailstock. Here's a pic of my setup. Made an outboard spider. Not expensive and works. You'll find out soon enough what you can get by with. Some things I won't buy cheap. Sure love my Yuasa chucks on the lathe and the spider chuck I built for barrel work with the same rotary table.

IMG_5697.jpg
 
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Ok, now for a dumb question, how can spiral fluting be done on a manual mill? Chain and sprocket to the rotary table somehow, timed with said sprocket to the table lead screw?
 
SkytopBrewster said:
Ok, now for a dumb question, how can spiral fluting be done on a manual mill? Chain and sprocket to the rotary table somehow, timed with said sprocket to the table lead screw?
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It was generally done with dividing heads that have an input shaft and geared to the table feed to get the right lead. More common with universal horizontal mills if you wanted to do proper shape helix like helical gears and such. They had good solid power feeds with constant speed settings/gear box, unlike the little powerfeed add on for most turret mills.
It can be rigged up to work a few other ways, heck you could even do it on a lathe, but the older machines were pretty much the sturdiest way to do it.

to me, it ain't worth the trouble either way.
 
SkytopBrewster said:
Ok, now for a dumb question, how can spiral fluting be done on a manual mill? Chain and sprocket to the rotary table somehow, timed with said sprocket to the table lead screw?
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You will need a Universal Dividing head, recognizable by having a change gear set and an extra stub out the side of the works, that gets the drive and coordinated the turning of the leadscrew to the turning of the part on the dividing head.

Yeah, you can do it just fine. If you have the right tools. :)

If you look at this dividing head from grizzly, http://www.grizzly.com/products/Dividing-Head-BS-1/G1054 note that it also includes a direct indexing feature, that is not quite as quick to use as the super spacer. It's also not nearly as expensive. But it does not have the input shaft to use as a Universal Dividing head for helical milling.

Note that despite the assertions of some around the web, you do not actually need a swivelling table to use a universal dividing head to mill helixes. The swivelling table was a feature of the Horizintal mills so that the cutter could be aligned with the helix if needed, on a vertical mill (that has the feature) you can swivel the head to one side or the other and work on the side of the part, or, for purposes like doung flutes, ignore the problem (as it it a non-issue) completely.

This ebay listing is for a Universal dividing head. http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-1-2-Inch...7?pt=BI_Tool_Work_Holding&hash=item35d07f9dc5

The gear input shaft is the key to that whole gig. No input shaft, equals NOT a Universal Dividing Head.

Do some searching around the web and see if you can find a video or two of helical milling on a manual machine. You can calculate the helix angles, it'll likely be the first time ever that knowing how to deal with fractional math will come in handy, or you can follow the charts that come with the Head. Providing of course, that they include the pitch of your lead screw!

These B&S (Brown and Sharpe) style heads can also be used as a rotary table of sorts, if you need to. Versatile tools!

And even the Grizzly Super Spacer type rapid indexer seems stupid expensive for what it is, compared to what you actually gain from it, IMO.

The math and the wish to avoid set-up and tear down time has been the near end of Universal Dividing Heads. It is so very easy to program a helix in a 4th axis equipped CNC, comparatively. There are a couple systems out there that will allow you to use a CNC 4th axis on a manual milling machine, but you need to be interested enough to build them, essentially. Look at the Electronic Lead Screw, or ELS, as one example.

Cheers
Trev
 
Thanks Trev, Personally not that interested in the spiral fluting although I do have a couple PTG bolts fluted that way and have a Spiral Fluted Broughton on order to do up a PGW copy 300WM.

I have blued and refinished probably 100 guns in the last couple years. 90% of the guys looked at my lathe with a smile and asked "can you flute barrels with that :)"
 
SkytopBrewster said:
90% of the guys looked at my lathe with a smile and asked "can you flute barrels with that :)"
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Welcome.

As to fluting barrels on a lathe, take a look at the Versamill and similar machines. Or, from a more 'hobby' orientation, do a search for "Potts Spindle", "Lathe Milling Spindle", or take a look at http://www.hemingwaykits.com/acatalog/The_Quick_Step_Mill__.html

Essentially add a live spindle to the carriage of the lathe, set things up carefully, and have at. It actually can be done, it's simply slower than many other ways, so is pretty much outside of commercial practice.

There are a LOT of things that CAN be done, but unless you get in a bind, they are usually a longer, harder way to go than to use the correct equipment. But if you do not have it, knowing how to do it with the wrong equipment, can make you look like a bloody magician! :)

The things I learned dong metalwork 'wrong' as a hobbyist, served me in good stead while solving the 'problem of the day' while working in a machine shop. Some of the things that I learned working in a well equipped machine shop, made me appreciate just how much easier things could be with the right tools, too. :)

Cheers
Trev
 
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