Milling-machine questions.
From total ignorance and bewilderment to a grasp of how these bloody things work. 😆
I take it a mill with a 45-degree tilt cannot do horizontal milling as well as vertical milling, whereas a mill with a 90-degree tilt can do both?
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Got it. Finally. 😆 Which leaves me wondering why they bother to make a round-column, rotatable head anyway. What’s it’s advantage? Taking swinging cuts?
Anyway, I’ll be going for a square column jobbie then. But not until I’ve mastered the lathe.
Thanks for the knowledge chaps. 😀
Here is a real example to help you understand the advice:
You meticulously locate a hole that must be drilled, bored, tapped
So you indicate in your workpiece, mound a center dril in your chuck, spot the hole, lift the spindle…… oops too low for the next bit…..
so you raise the head…….. square column no troubles….. round column you must indicate your hole back under teh spindle…. PITA
So you get the hole drilled and now mount your boring head….. spindle won’t reach so lower the head….. repeat the above……
a) square = no troubles
b) round column….. PITA
Does that help?l
Well, looking at most round column machines. If you rotated it to the side 90 degrees and then rotated it around the column so that you could mill on the side of the long axis of the table the cutting tool would be all the way at one end of the table, leaving you with next to no table travel to work with. I dont see it as much of a benefit really. Most likely you would have just as much table travel tilting to one side or the other and using the short table travel axis.
The impression I’m getting is that there are two types of rotation, one where you can tilt the head left and right by 45 or 90 degrees, and the other where you can rotate the head around the column.
I thought being able to both rotate the head left & right AND around the column meant you’d be able to align the cutter so you could mill horizontally along the longitudinal axis (left to right), whereas with a machine that can only tilt it’s head left and right would give you a tiny amount of horizontal capability (front to back).
Some can be rotated 90 to either side. Go square column all the way. The rigidity and not having to realign your mill head if you raise or lower the head is worth far more than any perceived bonus from a round column mill.
Would I be right in thinking that a mill with a square column can’t be rotated and used as a horizontal mill along the longitudinal axis?
Zero the mill, is something you have to do frequently, especially with these light machines and with the round column .
Also after milling something hard or with vibrations.
Failure to properly adjust the zero, everything goes wrong and the work out of measures.
I’m thinking of something like this for the weekends:
But that could be a knock-off of a knock-off…could end up buying a pile of steaming cack. 😯 😆
It’s a frikkin’ chinese minefield out there, and the only *seemingly* safe path I’ve found through it so far is provided by Chester (yeah, call me a sucker 😆 ).
And thanks for scaring me with “tram the mill”, it took me a minute’s searching to find out you meant “zero the mill”. 😆
One of these , prefer the square vertical column rather than the round…..
£525.00 delivered
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMA16V-Milling-Machine-Now-in-stock_W0QQitemZ360070615831QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item360070615831&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318
And one of these ….which will stop you from having to tram the mill everytime you tilt the mill over , which is a pain in the arse ……. and by the way you will hardly ever tilt the head over
£80
This was just a quick look on the net just for ideas …… 😀
Just bolt the job to an Angle Plate – Tiliting table on a vertical mill lot easier 😀
You’ll have to remember that I started with zero knowledge about mills, other than that they cut metal. I’m not much further ahead now actually.
I assumed a mill was a mill, with the only variations being the size of the work they could handle. I’m now aware there are basic mills that can do basic jobs, and multi-axis mills that can do more complex work.
But it does seem that as long as the mill can do vertical and horizontal cuts, with angles thrown in, most jobs can be done. No doubt a five-axis CNC can do the job of a manual vertical bench-mill in a hundredth of the time, but it’ll cost a hundred times more as well.
I was looking at this:
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http://www.chestermachinetools.com/store/cobra_mill.htm
Now I’m looking at this:
http://www.chestermachinetools.com/store/champion_mill.htm
The Cobra looks like it can go up and down and tilt left and right 45-degrees, whereas the Champion can go up and down, rotate left and right 90-degrees and rotate around it’s column.
You can only mill on one plane / axis at a time , so a vertical or horizontal mill is all you need , with vertical being easier to operate . As far as getting a machine that operates on both planes ,there are machines about but they tend to be a machine thats not good at one thing and not good at the other. This is the closest i could find and it must be a pigs ear to setup and use.
Just bolt the job to an Angle Plate – Tiliting table on a vertical mill lot easier 😀
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Because round column mills are much easier to manufacture and less expensive to purchase. I have one for sale CHEAP!!! PITA!!!
Here is what I replaced mine with.
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