Can someone explain MILLS to me?

Leu Custom

Leu Custom

Joined
Jun 2, 2007
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1,354
In your best written explanation (should you have the time), can you explain everything you can do/make with a mill that has to do with a knife (Fixed blade or folder).

If you can add photos of your explanations, that would be awesome!

What kind of cutter/bit cuts the long slot in a folder that looks like an upside and backwards L? How does one use a MILL to contour the handle and put contoured grooves in the handle.

And anything you can possibly think of sharing would be excellent! I'm a moron when it comes to MILLS and LATHES, etc etc....

Thanks in advance!

Pohan
 
That's... a pretty open-ended request.

It's not too far off from asking "Tell me everything I need to know in order to make knives".

Simply put, a mill and a lathe are the two primary machine tools. Properly used, they can make pretty much anything and everything, including copies of themselves.

You will NOT learn what you need to know in order to use one properly, by reading a few short paragraphs on a bulletin board. That L-shaped cut? You need to know what kind of material (steel or stainless? Hardened or annealed?) the proper cutting tool (taking into account depth of cut, desired surface finish, corner radii, coolant use, material hardness and so on) the proper spindle speed (is the tool two flute or four? Coated or uncoated? Coolant? How rigid is the setup? What's your depth of cut?) the proper way to hold the workpiece (vises, clamps, table hold-downs, cam-loks, magnetic chucks, vise inserts and work stops, plus is the part level and flat with the table, square with the tool and is the desired cut parallel to the table axis?)

If I was teaching somebody, they'd be in the shop a month before I let them crank the handles.

It's nothing against you personally, it's just that you're asking for the Cliff's Notes of a Readers' Digest version of a subject that can, and has, filled several hundred very thick books.

You don't want to ask "how do I make this particular cut?", you want to find out how a mill removes metal, and how it can be used to make metal parts, and then use that knowledge to figure out how to make the cut you want.

Doc.
 
A mill can be used to flatten a part, remove bulk material in an "etch a sketch" manner, used as a heavy duty drill press with depth precision of .001", square a part (make it 90 deg everywhere, think about it, a surface grinder can't really do that very well), and can be used as a lathe by mounting the work piece in the spindle and putting a tool in a vice to turn, groove and face a pin. You could use it to turn, knurl, drill, tap, face, countersink and cut off a thumb stud (or just your thumb), hinge pins, stop pins. Hollow out an integral folder, back bore clearance for bronze washers inside an integral. I use one to set my edge thickness before grinding. You can use one for "file work".

Add CNC control and you can also use it to profile your blade, engrave your sig, mill your bevels, contour your handle, mill threads with 100% thread depth in a square bottomed hole with control of the "tightness" and perfect placement precision (handy on a folder)

A mill can also be used to make tools and fixtures that are used in knifemaking such as parts for grinders, filing and honing jigs.

And my favorite use of a mill so far is you can mount a stir in a chuck and mix epoxy with it. Okay, that's not really my favorite, but I'll bet you never thought of it...
 
Pohan,
Doc is giving you real answer - Your question is too broad to answer.
I would suggest getting a book on mills and milling out of the library, and reading it. It should give you a basic idea of the procedure , parts, and principals. It takes a good while to learn how to mill beyond the basic process ( roughly comparable to learning to make knives). Some technical schools (vo-tech) may have a class on milling machine use. There are several DVD sets available to learn from also (netflix,smartvidio,etc.). The best choice would be to find someone with a good setup and have them teach you the basics. From there you have to refine your skills until you learn the more complex procedures.
Stacy
 
DocsMachine said:
Simply put, a mill and a lathe are the two primary machine tools. Properly used, they can make pretty much anything and everything, including copies of themselves.
Click to expand...

This is the crux of the whole discussion. Put a lathe and Mill in the shop and you can make just about anything. As long as it can be held it can be reproduced. If you add the benefits of a CNC controller you broaden their abilities to the millionth degree. you just need to have the imagination to get there. most other tools in a machine shop are there to increase the accuracy of the products produced on the Lathe and Mill.
 
I make traditional slipjoints and this is a picture of my mill. A small 6 x 26 "knee mill" import. The knee mill refers to the fact that the table is able to be raised and lowered versus the head being raised and lowered as on a mill/drill. The second picture is my tooling plate that I made up along with clamps to hold the frame material that I mill to make the one piece liner/bolsters. The old traditional way of doing it would be to solder the bolsters to the liners.

both yield good results if done right. I also use the mill to cut the long nail pulls in the blades.

Ken

IMGP0611-1.jpg


P1010076_edited-1.jpg
 
Nice machine you've got there,Ken! What do you have lining your table?once i get my main plates in place i'd hate to remove them to clean out the t-slots constantly.and cloths are'nt cuttin it.

I'd like to see everyones fixtures/plates you've made to hold your workpiece.i'm about to make up a mill plate basically as Ken pictured.which will handle many knifemaking tasks.I've also made new vice jaws and machined a small cut out to hold 1/2" aluminum plate for my main drillpress table.nothing like a big 'ol accurate drillpress!!
 
If you have a Lathe and a milling machine, with a bit of ambition and enough metal you can make a lathe and a milling machine, and with those tools you can make the tools to make everything else that you don't shape in the forge. It really is that simple. As Stacy said there are hundreds of books hundreds of pages long detailing what and how best you can do with these two tools. If it involves precisely shaping metal with flats holes and angles you can probably do it on a mill

-Page
 
I will take a picture of the fixture I use when cutting the long nail pulls and post it. The blue material is cut from a piece of printers blanket . At least I think that is what it was called when given to me.

Its a blue rubber with cloth back

Ken
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
And my favorite use of a mill so far is you can mount a stir in a chuck and mix epoxy with it. Okay, that's not really my favorite, but I'll bet you never thought of it...
Click to expand...

-How about using a 7HP Radial Arm drill to mix up two gallons of chocolate-chip cookie dough at a time? :D

cd16.jpg


Then use the shop's heat-treating ovens to bake 'em?

cd02.jpg


(Note what the cooling rack is attached to. :D )

That was an event the local Community College machine shop put on a few years ago, a sort of open house, which was a big hit. We baked something like 300 dozen cookies that day...

But I digress. :)

Doc.
 
LOL cookies...

I need some advice please. I have a question about mill/drills. I want to buy one this Summer. My main goal is to be able to make very precise pivot-holes for folding knives. I heard that dovetail column mills are able to place the holes more accurately than round column mills. I have been seriously considering the Seig Super X3 mill/drill
Do you think I could be happy with this machine?
I won't be able afford to spend much more than $1500 this Summer. I've been trying to get by using my drillpress but it's not precise enough. It's frustrating me and I'd like to find a solution soon.
Thank you.
 
Rob,that should make an excellent unit for our purpose!the main difference with round and square column machines is with round,the head will move (left-right) when lifted or dropped.with drilling this really does'nt matter.now for machining it would make a difference as you'd lose your position.

As i said, i've machined an aluminum plate 100% square to my spindle,since then i raised and lowered the head several times without losing any accuracy.i've used a counterbore to check everytime.

I'm sure the machinists will give you some good input here..,im just a newb :)
 
I bought that one just about a year ago and I have no complaints other then the on/off and speed control could be in more convenient place. You can run the speed down very low w/o losing torque. It is very solid and accurate and I highly recommend it. remember that the tooling will exceed the cost of the machine real quick. It does come with a good quality R-8 drill chuck. I had to make a spindle wrench for it since it does not lock. You could just get a small pipe wrench and duct tape teh teeth and that would work fine.

The column and power head detaches real easy so two people can wrestle it up on a bench with a small come-along type winch for the head/column.

I have used for alot of neat woodworking projects also.
 
Thank you. That's what I was hoping to hear.
I understand that the tooling is going to be expensive. I think I'll just get myself set up to drill holes first and worry about the rest later when my finances allow. Luckily the shipping isn't to crazy on this little machine.
I'm sure assembling the mill will be an adventure...
Thanks for the advice and tips. :)
 
RUGUR said:
Thank you. That's what I was hoping to hear.
I understand that the tooling is going to be expensive. I think I'll just get myself set up to drill holes first and worry about the rest later when my finances allow. Luckily the shipping isn't to crazy on this little machine.
I'm sure assembling the mill will be an adventure...
Thanks for the advice and tips. :)
Click to expand...

I bet its bigger then ya think :) i planned on putting mine on the bench...,just was'nt happening after i saw her :eek:
 
Me and my wife were able to lift the table onto the bench. But it took me and my neighbor about an hour to hoist the column and power head onto the table. We used a small come along hooked to a truss. I put two 2x4 temp supports in under the truss. The pictures of it do not convey the actual weight. The freight invoice listed it as 452 Lbs. I estimated 40 of that was the wood crating.

It wasn't exactly easy but two guys can set it up in under two hrs.

mill-web.jpg


There are several videos on Youtube showing how people have converted the Seig X3/Griz to CNC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPo0PJiEqHQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv3-DwEHh5o
 
Thanks for the heads up. I will make sure and come up with a good plan for setting up the mill before it arrives. My boss is related to some people who own a demolition company. I'm sure they have lots of lifting equipment and they might help me. It would be great if they brought a forklift.
Thanks for the picture, that gives me a pretty good idea of the size. That's about what I imagined.
I had read about people converting these things to CNC machines. That would be nice! Maybe I'll do that later on.
I'm glad I asked my question. Thank you.
 
RUGUR said:
Thanks for the heads up. I will make sure and come up with a good plan for setting up the mill before it arrives. My boss is related to some people who own a demolition company. I'm sure they have lots of lifting equipment and they might help me. It would be great if they brought a forklift.
Thanks for the picture, that gives me a pretty good idea of the size. That's about what I imagined.
I had read about people converting these things to CNC machines. That would be nice! Maybe I'll do that later on.
I'm glad I asked my question. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Your going to freakin love it,Rob! i seriously snicker everytime i drill a hole...,its that much fun :D
 
I think what got me asking this question is that I know there are a lot of you out there that really love to throw what you know out there! Yes, it's a question like ummm, "hey! How do you get good grades and pass classes in college!"....

I like toys that look neat and generally if I acquire new toys, I always try to find the time to learn how to use them correctly. (well not always). :)

This is a bitchin MILL on Mr. Terrell's website. Probably out of reach for a lot of makers price wise i'm guessing!

IMG_5427.JPG


I appreciate the answers. I know no one can teach me how to use a MILL by describing it over a post :)

Pohan Leu
 
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