- Joined
- Oct 20, 2008
- Messages
- 5,547
The guy I got the mill from had said he had more tooling for it buried somewhere, and to go ahead and look in the tools out back if I wanted. Well, I got to wanting to use this thing, and didn't want to buy collets. So, I went back over there and after digging for a good while, I found a wastepaper basket half full of mill tooling.
I got collets from 1/4" to 3/4", which will keep me for now. I got a big face mill with carbide inserts! I got a 5/8" chuck with R8 adapter, some morse taper adapters, a bunch of end mills, ball end, double end, four and two flute, etc. I got a big heavy slitting saw arbor with a stack of good slitting blades! A woodruff key cutter and some other stuff, too.
So, I chucked up a 1/2" end mill and went at a piece of mild with it, just machining the face flat.
The mill wandered badly on the fore/aft way. After monkeying with it for a bit, I figured out that the bracket which holds the screw for the bottom table, and bolts through to hold it to the bracket for sideways travel, had one bolt sheared and the other severely loose and nearly sheared. Wonder how that happened.
So, I took the table apart and took the bracket out, cut new bolts down to fix it, and torqued it all back together. Works fine now. I could tell that the table had never been taken apart before, the factory paint was still filleted over the seams. They must have just put up with it, or maybe it broke shortly before their shop was packed up anyhow. It sure didn't mill accurately that way.
I downloaded the manual for that machine. Now I have the chart for speeds/pulleys.
I chucked up that face mill and hogged the scale off a strip of 1/4"x1.5" mild for fun. Quick and clean! Now I gotta quit playing with the mill until I actually use it on a knife related project...
I got collets from 1/4" to 3/4", which will keep me for now. I got a big face mill with carbide inserts! I got a 5/8" chuck with R8 adapter, some morse taper adapters, a bunch of end mills, ball end, double end, four and two flute, etc. I got a big heavy slitting saw arbor with a stack of good slitting blades! A woodruff key cutter and some other stuff, too.
So, I chucked up a 1/2" end mill and went at a piece of mild with it, just machining the face flat.
The mill wandered badly on the fore/aft way. After monkeying with it for a bit, I figured out that the bracket which holds the screw for the bottom table, and bolts through to hold it to the bracket for sideways travel, had one bolt sheared and the other severely loose and nearly sheared. Wonder how that happened.
So, I took the table apart and took the bracket out, cut new bolts down to fix it, and torqued it all back together. Works fine now. I could tell that the table had never been taken apart before, the factory paint was still filleted over the seams. They must have just put up with it, or maybe it broke shortly before their shop was packed up anyhow. It sure didn't mill accurately that way.
I downloaded the manual for that machine. Now I have the chart for speeds/pulleys.
I chucked up that face mill and hogged the scale off a strip of 1/4"x1.5" mild for fun. Quick and clean! Now I gotta quit playing with the mill until I actually use it on a knife related project...