milling machines

[freebe]

can table top milling machines do the job well or should i look at finding a good old knee mill basicaly i need it for slotting gaurds tapering full tang handles 440 c is the steel i will use most

[metalmole]

bench top will do just fine for that.....

[Tait]

bench top will do just fine for that.....

Metalmole, how would you (personally) use a benchtop mill for tapering full tang knives? I've never figured out how to do it better than on my grinder...

[Don Hanson III]

Small mill is fine for slotting guards.

Use a grinder for tapering tangs...

[JamesBro]

sherline mini mills pop up on ebay frequently.

[David Schott]

Metalmole, how would you (personally) use a benchtop mill for tapering full tang knives? I've never figured out how to do it better than on my grinder...

If you have a big enough mill its not hard....ive tapered tangs on my bridgeport. I did the math and just figured out how much i needed to raise the tang to get the right angle then used a tilting table attachment to hold the blade. The harder part was doing the math over so that when i flipped it over the angle got re-adjusted correctly.

Probably not worth the effort but its certainly do-able with a fullsize mill. I hogged 1/8" of steel at a time.

[Tait]

Thanks David,

Was that with a face mill?

I have a setup for face milling stock (with a magnetic chuck), but found it caused stress bending in the thin stuff I was hoping to do it on.

[David Schott]

Thanks David,

Was that with a face mill?

I have a setup for face milling stock (with a magnetic chuck), but found it caused stress bending in the thin stuff I was hoping to do it on.

I just did it with a carbide endmill. My bridgeport is a 1944 m-head that accepts only a 1/2" max size collet so finding decent face mills with 1/2" shanks hasnt been too easy.

[metalmole]

Ive never tapered a tang on my mill, but have tapered other parts, as David stated getting your part held in the right position is the tricky part, also be careful holding parts with a magnetic chuck for milling, those tables are made for grinding, some of the magnetic chucks just dont have the hold down power for milling...

Metalmole, how would you (personally) use a benchtop mill for tapering full tang knives? I've never figured out how to do it better than on my grinder...

[metalmole]

I call the Sherline mills a suitcase mill, I have a couple and they are allright for very small fine work, but they are very limited and one will find out very quickly they need something bigger. I would suggest getting a mill bigger than you think you will need as you will find more and more uses for it......

sherline mini mills pop up on ebay frequently.

[Fellhoelter]

If you have a big enough mill its not hard....ive tapered tangs on my bridgeport. I did the math and just figured out how much i needed to raise the tang to get the right angle then used a tilting table attachment to hold the blade. The harder part was doing the math over so that when i flipped it over the angle got re-adjusted correctly.

Probably not worth the effort but its certainly do-able with a fullsize mill. I hogged 1/8" of steel at a time.

It's just double... If it's 2 degrees on one side, then you fixture off of that newly cut surface it would be 4 degrees.
2.5 > 5
Etc...