Bench top milling machine wanted

[sunndog]

dave, if its in plastic could you use an adjustable vice and a piller drill?.....no idea if thats any good for what you're planning but i'v done similar to slot thin steel in the past


rodders, even i have my moments mate...luckily they never last long, i do have a rep to protect y'know

[terry1001]

The Chester machines are quite good and they have a showroon in Staffordshire, they do sometimes have ex demo machines at reduced prices but you do need to check what comes with them as sometimes they don't have all the bits you'd get with a new one.

[some bloke]

dave, if its in plastic could you use an adjustable vice and a piller drill?.....no idea if thats any good for what you're planning but i'v done similar to slot thin steel in the past

I had looked at that idea thanks Adam but the slot is quite deep and I want some sort of repeatability and a saleable quality finish that probably wouldn't happen with that method. The bulk of the job will start on the lathe then finish with the mill. As it's only Delrin/Acetal the cheap one from Arc should do the small slotting bit very nicely.

I'm also less likely to lose any of the four fingers I have left on my left hand.

[rodp]

Dave, I meant come here and use this one, not lug two tons of miller around in your taxi mate

Have you thought of making something up to secure the delrin to the tool post on your lathe and putting the milling tool in the chuck ? Might be a simple answer

[some bloke]

Dave, I meant come here and use this one, not lug two tons of miller around in your taxi mate

Have you thought of making something up to secure the delrin to the tool post on your lathe and putting the milling tool in the chuck ? Might be a simple answer

OOPS - that too is very generous of you too. Thank you for the kind offer young man.

I got the job nearly into the right position, through mounted over the tool post bolt - but there is another issue of drilling fixing holes with accurate alignment. I have about settled on the SEIG/ARC one TBH.

[funkedup]

a man who does bits on rapids (Bucketboy) is a bit of a genius when it comes to things like this

He has drilled the top of the chuck at 5 degree increments and made a slave pin to drop into it to lock the chuck at certain positions, then he has made a little bracket to sit in his tool post to hold a dremel

He uses this for basic milling and broaching of airstrippers, baffles and barrel supports.

It also helps when re-porting a barrel so you get the transfer port and barrel location screw hole at exactly 180 degrees, the same with rapid valves, the transfer port and the valve retaining screw at exactly 90 degrees.

awesome bit of kit, cheap to make and very handy

[some bloke]

That sounds good for delicate jobs.

[terry1001]

Most small lathes can be fitted with a cross slide mounted vice with adjustment vertically so that you can place your work in the correct position relative to the chuck mounted cutter. It's not a method that I would particulalry want to use but if you have no space, and little use, for a separate milling machine it will cope with small jobs.
I get quite a lot of use out of a small rotary table fitted with a 3 jaw chuck for holding cylindrical workpieces on the mill and this allows for precise indexing or for drilling a number of equally spaced holes around the job. I do often wish that I had digital read outs on the mill as those on my lathe are extremely useful but then I also wish I had a cnc machine but I can't see that happening anytime soon.
If you have jobs which are done on a fairly regular basis it's often possible to make up jigs and fixtures which make it much easier to repeat the operations to the required level of accuracy but you have to make the investment in time to produce them and sometimes it's more attractive to just get on with making the parts even though, in the long term, it would make more sense to fabricate the jigs.

[Hilbily]

You can mill on your lathe with a vertical adjustable milling vise mounted to the front of the cross slide.
Here's a few pictures and a video; http://users.picknowl.com.au/~gloaming_agnet/mill.html