Cross-sliding vise for milling?

C

catcalls

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May 7, 2012
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I would love to be able to mill out simple stuff like slots in guards, etc., but there is no way in hell that I would spend upwards of $1000 on a mill within the next 3 years, so I was wondering how well this actually works. I Understand its no bridgeport, just somethat that I could use to rough mill something. Thanks
Jack
 
I tried one. It works great for locking up a tang and drilling holes. For actual milling it is not tight enough for precision (at least not the one I have) and it puts quite a bit of stress on the bearings of your drill press. They are not made for lateral stress like a mill is. Too much use would ruin your press.
 
I wouldnt wast my money on one, it wont work, also a drill press is not made for side loading like milling. However I have seen some guys use an X-Y table on larger drill presses for doing light work...
 
I have to echo Matt and metalmole on this.....

You don't want to use a cross sliding vise for milling in a drill press. That lateral pressure is no bueno!
 
Using a drillpress as a mill is a good way of making the holes you are drilling less precise by damaging your drillpress and at the same time producing sub-acceptable milling results. It can be done, but its not a good idea.
 
Plus, side loading the Morse taper on your press is a good way to have it come loose and go flying out of the press. Better to drill a series of holes then use a end mill to plunge down between them. If you did enough plunges it wouldn't take much filing.

I wonder how mounting a router over a cross feed vise would work for a cheap mill setup. Routers are designed to side load, are available at pawn shops.
 
ib2v4u said:
Plus, side loading the Morse taper on your press is a good way to have it come loose and go flying out of the press. Better to drill a series of holes then use a end mill to plunge down between them. If you did enough plunges it wouldn't take much filing.
Click to expand...

I was thinking exactly of doing the end mill plunge thing - good to know my idea wasn't completely wonk :)

The router idea seems interesting.
 
Don Nguyen said:
I was thinking exactly of doing the end mill plunge thing - good to know my idea wasn't completely wonk :)

The router idea seems interesting.
Click to expand...

A router spins around 30,000 rpm vs. normal milling speeds of maybe 1000 rpm (general statement... It might be higher or lower depending on the material, using a spindle speed calculation). So it seems waaaaaaaay to fast, and pretty dangerous. It seems like a good way to loose a few fingers, IMHO.
 
I did it for a while with a big 20" JET variable speed drill press. That was stable enough, but I still really only used it for milling micarta and G10. Tried mild steel, too much slop- and thinking about that big chuck and taper flying at me spinning, end mill first, is too much pucker factor for me.
 
Agree with all the previous posts.

The best way, IMHO, for you... Would be to order a carbide, center cutting endmill that's smaller in diameter than your blade thickness. It HAS to be center cutting so that you can plunge with it.

Then you need to set up your guard stock in a solid drill press vise that is fixed in place. No hand holding the stock, I wouldn't even hold it in a vise that's not clamped/bolted/etc down to the table.

Then use the endmill to drill the holes. The benefit of this, is the center cutting endmill will plunge down and cut where you want it to. So you can drill your first hole, move your guard stock over 1/2 the diameter of your cutter, and then drill the second hole.

If you try to do that with a typical 118 or 135 degree HSS twist drill, the drill is going to wander over and want to go back into the first hole.

You can drill out 90% of the slot that way, and then do the final fit up with files.
 
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