DIY mill...

[keith77777]

It's a concrete lampshade !!

My latest acquirsition from the Cumbria steam rally at the week end. Has a big hole though, will have to give some thought about making an arbor.

Cheers Keith

[Robin Hewitt]

It's a concrete lampshade !!

There may only be one diamond in the house that will true this thing up, but I suggest you ask her first :naughty:

[keith77777]

Grindstone cowboy

Hi Robin in the group

I really must broach the subject and duck to avoid flying pans.:lol: I think out of balance would be my gratest worry. Same old Steam rally as 5 years ago always the bloke drilling files. A shortcut to what I am trying to make would be the pillar drill you could make a swinging head by loosening off the head and having it rotate on a collar. Most surface grinders seem to have a trough with the gindstone doing the bis, guess this must be for safety. With having a variable speed motor at least I can keep the revs down for starters.

Cheers Keith

[Robin Hewitt]

I know nothing about these things, but my gut tells me that if you put this in a pillar drill the taper would let go before you could say, "Bugger".

Plenty of time afterwards though :naughty:

[keith77777]

I only meant using the pillar stand arrangement, I have a high speed saw spindle with a hole thro one end, a tailour made arbour would be the way. . Yer it is difficult, if you were armour plated or had 1/2 of perspex between you and the work it would be hard to get anything done. I had an abrasive cut-off saw once it scared me so much I gave it away. Angle grinders are very useful but can be as dangerous. I regularly use one for cutting sheet metal, does not crimp the metal like snips. A lot of this stuff is a long way of I have not made the stand yet !!
I am enjoying machining this cast iron in the lathe and making large cuts with old faithful I would send you some if you don;nt mind the postage. :lol:

Cheers Keith

[keith77777]

Just had the column for my mill turned on a proper lathe mine only traverses the length of the compound slide so no way I could do something this length. The guy did a really good job and also trued the ends up. Next stage is to weld on a wheel flange from those old trailer parts. This will be bolted to the cast iron slab from the night storage heater(with appropiate shims fitted). You know how it is lazyness may set in at any stage. Hows your mill coming on????

Cheers Keith

[keith77777]

Hello All
I have abandoned the idea of making a vertical mill in favour of a Gingery imitation. I looked at various designs including the Westbury and decided driving a moving vertical spindle was too much of a problem.
The Gingery mill is based on the old Lincoln design using flat belts much easier to accomodate spindle movement.
The bits use angle iron bolted together (tack weld when adjusted). I cheated by buying an X-Y table.
Spindle is from a washing machine drum and I will be useing my motor controller to avoid multiple pulleys.

[wiremonkey]

Yeah, early on I bought some end mills and chucked them up in my drill press and... no.

[keith77777]

Hi Wiremonkey
Sorry for not repying for so long, I have loaded up win7 and had lost my log in.
Its some time since I built the Gingery mill clone. Its all steel and uses the slide is off the lathe(capston) as vertical slide. I actually got the xy automated by using wiper motors and an optical system on the motor shaft. I was able to do this using CNC pro which has a stop feature. The prog is stopped until the step is successful.Most of the running gear is off washing machine parts. I boxed a drum bearing for the head and use all the pulleys and motor. I actually sell the motor controller for these universal brushed motors. These motors are ideal being around 1HP and variable speed from 200 to 12000 RPM. At present I am working on making the PCB,s for my speed controllers surface mount, I have a cheap cnc router table which is used with Inkscape and Zeus to mill out the pcb. I think the old cnc progs had many advantages eg with zeus you can stop at any point and trim the position of the tool, half way to conversational cnc.

Not idle Ha Ha Keith

[wiremonkey]

Milling a pcb is on my bucket list! I admire your moxy.