Lathes & M/C tools

[raymw]

I think, if i were interested in said Axminster mill, and starting from scratch I'd need to add quite a few hundred pounds for the tooling required. I can not think where the horizontal mill would be necessary, if I also had a lathe.  Coolant pump and a large tray would be beneficial, which sort of defeats the object, if wanting to use it in a semi domestic environment. There is also a whole world of difference in running a small machine with small cutters at slow rpm cf a large pro machine at same speed and cutter size - you can't beat big lumps of cast iron/steel.

 

fwiw, you can buy 6mm shank (weldon) slot drills for about £4 or so from Cutwell, WNT and other specialist suppliers, designed to cut various materials, far better tools than obtained from Axminster, RDG, or other hobby suppliers.

 

Part of the aspect of high cutting speeds, is that the chips are thrown well away from the working surface, taking the heat with them. A forceful coolant jet (or air) keeps the slot/work area clear of loose chips. About the worse thing you can do is use an intermittent squirt from a squeezy bottle, but if milling most brasses, you may need no liquid coolant.

 

Not trying to put anyone off, but 1) I'd need a good look at the actual machine before purchasing (I've spent thousands at Axminster over the years, but sometimes the quality has been rubbish (of stuff I've seen, but not bought)) 2) Is the extra flexibility going to be a benefit or a handicap, and is it worth the money.

 

Best wishes,

 

Ray

[AndyID]

you can't beat big lumps of cast iron/steel.

 

 

I agree - and there is plenty of it on this little guy.

 

 

This is the geared head version. I may have been lucky, but I've never found much wrong with it. IIRC, it was $1000 around 2009. The motorized feed is a later add-on.

 

The worst thing about it is how you lose the reference to the table when you raise or lower the head. A square column might be better.

[sagaguy]

There are better value milling machines on the market,I bought & use one of these,

 

            http://www.warco.co.uk/milling-machines/32-wm-16-variable-speed-milling-machine.html

 

With cabinet,ER25 tooling & milling vice,it is a very solid m/c.

 

 

   Another Ray.

[hobbyhorse]

It's a very difficult balance, cost, quality, top end speeds.

Generally the imported stuff is OK ish, but buyer beware. Even some of the big names sell rubbish at times.

If you are going to drill 10 thou holes, use small cutters you're going to have to spend some cash.

Nothing from the Far East will fit the bill, it's worth contacting some of the good second hand dealers and having a chat with them.

One machine that I bought over 20 years ago was a Taylor Hobson model D panto engraver, with a top speed of 20.000rpm, and the option of locking the head to enable light milling and drilling this fits the bill, especially as the foot print is smaller than most hobby type mills, and with a gear knee that has around 15 inch clearance, space to hold the workpiece and tools is not a problem.

You can still pick these up for around £300, which is exceptional valve for a high precision tool that has a good backup service for all the important bits like the cutting head and bearings, plus if you like a bit of scratch building it will do anything in 7mm profiling parts.

 

Simon

[ian@stenochs]

Hi,

With machine tools you get what you pay for. I too have a Taylor Hobson bought 2nd hand, it may be old but it was and still is a quality machine which has paid for itself in the parts it has turned out over the years.

If you want a really rigid small mill I would suggest you look at Cowells. I have one and it is a very well engineered knee type with all the important parts in cast iron with adjustable Gibs. With an infinitely variable speed it is a very flexible and versatile machine. Certainly handles anything in 7mm scale.

Ian.

[pointstaken]

Hi,

If you want a really rigid small mill I would suggest you look at Cowells. I have one and it is a very well engineered knee type with all the important parts in cast iron with adjustable Gibs. With an infinitely variable speed it is a very flexible and versatile machine. Certainly handles anything in 7mm scale.

Ian.

Agreed. I've had one for several years, and although expensive to buy, it is definitely a high quality piece of equipment. A pleasure to own and use.

 

Dennis

[M Wright]

Hi, what a lot of sound advice from the some real expert builders. I make my pin money in retirement batch producing live steam engines. In the workshop I have the following mills ,A Tom Senior universal mill circa 1968- Large, beautiful build quality, with two verticle heads , one high speed the other low speed. Secondly a George Alexander (a larger version of a Taylor Hobson with z axis profiling) profile pantographic mill and diesinker. circa1955.  This machine is the only way to pattern make quickly, it runs at 18000rpm and I use 3/32 and 1mm solid carbide slot drills without cooling since the bulk of the work is profiling brass components for casting masters.  The other use is to batch profile frames and rods for small runs.  I have had both machines for about 30 years, they are accurate with little or no backlash on any of the feeds. What help is this to readers of this forum?  Just to make the point that the Senior cost £1200 with about 80Kg of vices and tools and arbours thrown in.  Today with a knowledgable  friend and a clock gauge  you might be able to pick up the same machine for £2800- £3200. Nobody today produces anything as good in this size apart from the Swiss and Germans and these current machines are very, very expensive.(so few are sold today with CNC and rapid prototyping).  The Alexander cost £750, today you could pick one up for for scrap value (£200) nobody uses them anymore. Replaced by CNC routers, mills and Roland cutter plotters. There is some lovely equipment out there going for a song, the problem is not to buy unless you know the difference between a well maintained machine that might look a bit tired (worn chipped paint etc) and a dangerous pup. Hence my advice find a pal (sign up for an evening class)who knows what to look for and how to test it.  In the last few months I got a nice lathe, (for 101/4" gauge stuff). Still listed by Emco at 32,000 Euro for £1600 on e-bay! 15 years old ex Training College, near mint , well tooled.  There are bargains out there.

If you want a well thought of smallish verticle mill look for a second hand Emco, they are quite well made, simple and accurate. Another suggestion Sieg X3 with DC drive from Arceuro.Quite nicely made and solid, for a Chinese machine much better than some other products of the Peoples Republic, The beds/columns are manufactured on state of the art Swiss machines (I have been told). Last point, within reason a machine tool can never be too large, but many people outgrow a small machine, Big/heavy = rigidity and accuracy. Should you buy a machine tool anyway? Perhaps you should teach yourself 3D CAD and then wait until a desktop rapid prototyper comes along  with 0.025mm build layer.  At the moment they are about $20,000 but a year or two ago they were $200,000, Soon the likes of Shapeways will offer this quality or better  at day to day prices.  Who needs a mill then? Regards

Edited July 16, 2015 by M Wright

[ozzyo]

some of us will just like to have a lathe and mill so that we can just do it ourselves.

 

OzzyO.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ozzyo

[brack]

Out of interest does anyone know of a service for cnc milling small single parts who have reasonable prices - I can easily draw things in cad, but if there was somewhere I could upload say a set of con rods to, throw them a few quid and get them in the post a few days later. Most sites I've found are aimed at rather more complex jobs and are priced accordingly.

[raymw]

Hi Brack,

 

That's what you need friends for, or join a club. I doubt if you'll find any commercial, reliable business doing anything for much under £50.00 per hour, and i would guess it could be a couple of hours work. I used to have 'friends' who would occasionally ask me to do 'jobs' for them.  A blooming insult when they put their hand in their pocket for the loose change. I stopped them by saying that they could not afford my rates, and suggested they, if they couldn't pay the true value, that they came over and did my gardening for a few hours.

[chris p bacon]

I've ventured into new territory for some advice.

 

I'm helping to dispose of a friends estate part of which is his workshop with 2 lathes with milling attachments, A Unimat 3 and a Hobbymat BFE65. Can someone give me a rough guide as to their worth ?

 

<Snip>

Further to my post above,

 

Rather than send private emails I'd like to give a public thank you  to all those that emailed me with help and advice, It was much appreciated and of a great help.

 

I can say that they were delivered to their new owner last night, so you never know they may reappear here in the future as projects progress.

 

Once again thanks chaps, it's not easy dealing with an estate but help such as yours really does makes a difference.

[ozzyo]

Hello all,

 

after milling up the steam pipe casings for Princess Anne I'm finding the limitations of using the fly cutter for doing curved cut-outs for smoke-box's Etc. and could realy do with one of these.

 

I'd have had this one in five minutes if it had been a bit smaller say about 1 1/2" and with a 1MT. arbor. 

 

Now for the question does anybody know where I could get one that has a 1MT arbor?

 

TFAH

 

OzzyO.

[raymw]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RDGTOOLS-30MM-BORING-HEAD-KIT-1MT-ADAPTOR-/370758530146 or do a web search. RDG tools are sort of OK.

[sagaguy]

Yes,that would do the job.No 1 morse taper collet chucks or end mill holders were pretty well unobtainable when i bought my Hobbymat BFE 65 milling m/c in the late 1970`s,,i had to purchase a collet chuck & collets from the manufacturer,about £95 i seem to recall,a lot of cash in those far off days.It now does service as a drilling m/c since i replaced it with a Warco WM 16 vertical mill.

 

                          Ray.

[ozzyo]

Hello all,

 

I've just ordered it along with some cutting tools to go with it, about £75.00 I got it through their own web site as it was a bit cheaper.

 

Thanks for the pointer.

 

OzzyO. 

[sagaguy]

Hello all,

 

I've just ordered it along with some cutting tools to go with it, about £75.00 I got it through their own web site as it was a bit cheaper.

 

Thanks for the pointer.

 

OzzyO. 

 

 If you ordered it through RDG`s website,you may get a 5% loyalty discount card which is very useful.

 

               Ray.

[raymw]

Hi OzzyO,

 

when you get the kit from rdg, can you say what you think of it, quality wise? You'll have to make up a 14mm draw bar, I guess, length of studding and a slim nut?.

[ozzyo]

Hi OzzyO,

 

when you get the kit from rdg, can you say what you think of it, quality wise? You'll have to make up a 14mm draw bar, I guess, length of studding and a slim nut?.

 

Hello Ray,

 

I'll do that, the 14 X 1mm is the size of the screw on the arbor where it fits in the back of the boring head. The draw bar size is M6 I did check that before ordering it.

 

OzzyO.

[raymw]

I should have thought before I asked, 14mm a bit big for 1MT back end, but 14mm was all I saw on the page to which I linked.

[ozzyo]

Hello all,

 

so what do you get for 70 odd quid?

 

Boring head and arbor, eight boring tools (that could also be used on the lathe) and a block to keep them in (hole are a bit big about 10mm).

 

Some close ups of the boring head. You get three mounting holes for the tools, two in the bottom and one across the body. To use the one across the body you would have to grind you own tools,as the boring tools are meant to be used in the bottom two holes.

 

A close up of the indexing wheel, I've not worked out what the scale is yet, but I think that 1 rev will be 0.5mm (so 1mm off the bore), so per each index 0.02mm  (0.0008") off the bore.

 

In place on the mill.

 

Summery,

Good points,

well made and finished, good clear indexes (I may fill  them with some black latter on), looks like it will have a good range using the three holes, tools look very good and well ground.

 

Down side,

arbor could have done with two flats on it to help with tightening the head on, M14X1mm thread was a bit tight (but better than lose), the screw above the index wheel caught on the M14X1mm thread on the arbor, you have to use two Allan keys, one for the slide lock and one for the index, the wooden block could have been a bit better (very minor).

 

Boring head good value, tools sound a bit dear but not really at £3.07 each. 

 

All in all a nice bit of kit so 8.5 / 10.

 

OzzyO.

 

PS. please feel free to ask any questions.

[scot6p]

Any chance of a video when you use it mate?

 

Len

[ozzyo]

Any chance of a video when you use it mate?

 

Len

 

Don't know about a video Len, but I will post some photos.

 

OzzyO.

[Baby Deltic]

I haven't used a boring head for years. Used to use the type where you grabbed a collar on the outside and counted the clicks as it rotated to measure the depth of cut.

[Baby Deltic]

A lot would depend on what you wanted to M/C for a lot of 7 / 10mm stuff this mill would have a lot of uses, it could be a bit small for 7" gauge type stuff. To get the best use of the space between the table and spindle nose you may have to use "finger" collets. This is the first time that I have seen a universal mill (or a H mill) in the Axminster catalogue and could be to see how it goes? Maybe a bigger one next year?  It does have a lot going for it 300mm longitudinal travel, 92mm cross travel, that should be big enough for most 7mm locos for the important bits.

 

Spindle speed can be a bit of a red hearing, 200 - 2,000 rpm. The low end is a bit on the high side I'd have liked to see about 100 rpm. The top end is OK for most of our type of work. Cutting speed books may tell you to use 20,000 rpm for small milling cutters but when you start to use these types of speed you also have to use the types of cutter that will stand being used at that sort of speed and at the cost of them, when you start to run at these sort of speeds you will need coolant and a lot of it.

 

When I was in heavy engineering I worked a V. mill that had a top speed of approx. 1,600 rpm and it was OK cutting 1mm key-ways to + -  0.025mm. It was also quite happy to take a 3/8" cut off a slab of 8" wide metal at 10" per min. IIRC spindle speed was about 300-400 rpm. With a cutter of about 10" dia.

 

OzzyO.

 

I used to love using the old H mills. You could get a super finish when you climb milled on a slow feed rate. We had one with a bent arbor which made a bit of a racket when you took a decent cut.

[Baby Deltic]

If this link works it shows why you should be very careful when using lathes. 

 

OzzyO.

 

PS. why he had on long sleeves and working the way that he did I don't know? Why have the saddle in the way of working? It should have been at one end or the other and for a job like this (at the chuck end? better?) Why was his mate not near the controls (stop button)? Then look at all of the crap that is around the lathe. The cleanest place is at the rear of the lathe, not the working area.

I gave an apprentice a right b0ll0cking many years ago when I caught him polishing a work piece on the lathe with emery cloth anchored round his thumb. Needless to say he didn't heed the warning to hold it between his thumbs and forefingers so he could let go if it snatched, and he ended up having his thumb nail completely ripped out when what I had warned him would happen, happened. A lesson learnt the hard way and lucky for him to walk away with his fingers still connected to his body.