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Thread: Small milling machines

  1. #41
    Boolit Master Hannibal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by M-Tecs View Post
    Facebook marketplace has been very good for me.
    I don't have an account but my wife does. I'll ask her to keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip!

  2. #42
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    Stop into some of the tool vendors in your area and inquire about use machine vendors. A lot of the tool supplies shops also may have nice used equipment.Estate auctions will turn up machines also.

    The one plus to grizzly is that they will deliver to your door. Some of their sales even include free delivery.

    When I moved my equipment it was a 4 man crew me and 2 friends we were 6 hours moving 2 lathes a bridgeport a surface grinder tooling and stock. For an idea the bill was $800.00 3 pizzas and a case of beer.

  3. #43
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    I got my mill from Craigs list. Most places have some kind of online space for things for sale. Like I had said, you may have to look a lot and do some digging but sales are out there for things, the hard part is just finding them. some ISP's will have a forsale site set up, can't hurt to look for one of those. Also ask around at any local machine shops, they may know of people or places selling equipment. Word of mouth is always a good way of learning of things.
    University surplus is a good place to keep an eye on. Places like that sell old stuff and upgrade from time to time and may also bring stuff in from branch campus's to sell off. As a rule the equipment may be on the old side but not used hard like it would be out in manufacturing.
    Also putting an add on here for what you want can't hurt. Also the ASSRA site has a forsale section and you could put a wanted to buy add on there never know who will want to sell what.
    Littlemachineshop.com is a good place to look and research for bench top sized equipment as well as a source for some tooling. Shars and CDCO Machinery are 2 places I have used in the past to pick up tooling for my lathe and mill. Ebay can be a source if you are both careful and lucky. I have made some good buys from Ebay but you have to be a good shopper and do your research before you pull the trigger there. Some people selling stuff think their stuff is made of gold and always check the shipping, you can get screwed there.
    Happy Searching
    Sam

  4. #44
    Boolit Master Hannibal's Avatar
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    So I tried uploading a photo of my lathe compound removed but I'm having problems. Nothing special, just a stub about 5/8" long with a tapered groove turned into it that fits down into the cross slide held in place by a couple of set screws. Here's what I'm thinking about buying.Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #45
    Boolit Master Hannibal's Avatar
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    And here is the bottom of the attachment. Click image for larger version. 

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    Is there any reason you folks can think of why I can't turn a plug with a taper groove matching the one on my compound and attach it to this plate using the holes presently provided for the T nuts? I could drill and tap holes into the plug. The 2 locator pins would need to be cut off or otherwise removed. I'm thinking about this to keep everything as close to the cross slide as possible.

    Then I could attach it to the cross slide the same way the compound attaches. I could then mount whatever I'm working on using 2 pieces of bar stock drilled to match the T-slots using bolts and T-nuts. One piece of bar stock would also be drilled and tapped for jam bolts to hold the work securely.
    Last edited by Hannibal; 10-17-2022 at 07:00 PM.

  6. #46
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    So don't get offended please , but is it that you can't afford a small mill or just don't want to spend the money ?
    If it's a I can't afford it that's understandable, been there done that .

    But if it's a case of not wanting to spend the money .... it wont take a whole lot of screwing around with cobbling up a milling attachment and scrapping parts and tools before you are near or at the cost of a mini mill from harbor freight

    With that said ... if I'm picturing it properly in my head what you propose is technically doable . But it is going to be about as rigid as a limp noodle . If you are care full and stay away from hard materials you could work with it.
    Next question is , what's the plan on holding endmills in the spindle ?
    If you don't have a 5c Chuck I'll throw out a suggestion for what will probably be the simplest as most cost effective solution .

    A small ER collet block held in your 4 jaw Chuck , er32 blocks and collets are reletivly cheap and itll be useful when you do finally get a mill

  7. #47
    Boolit Master Hannibal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by redneck1 View Post
    So don't get offended please , but is it that you can't afford a small mill or just don't want to spend the money ?
    If it's a I can't afford it that's understandable, been there done that .

    But if it's a case of not wanting to spend the money .... it wont take a whole lot of screwing around with cobbling up a milling attachment and scrapping parts and tools before you are near or at the cost of a mini mill from harbor freight

    With that said ... if I'm picturing it properly in my head what you propose is technically doable . But it is going to be about as rigid as a limp noodle . If you are care full and stay away from hard materials you could work with it.
    Next question is , what's the plan on holding endmills in the spindle ?
    If you don't have a 5c Chuck I'll throw out a suggestion for what will probably be the simplest as most cost effective solution .

    A small ER collet block held in your 4 jaw Chuck , er32 blocks and collets are reletivly cheap and itll be useful when you do finally get a mill
    Well as far as collets are concerned It's my understanding that a SouthBend Heavy 10 accepts 5C collets in the headstock. I've not verified this yet so obviously that's on the checklist before I order anything.
    And as far as why I'm considering this route at this time I only have one project in particular that I'm planning to do where I know there are a couple of operations that would be better to perform as a milling operation. Having said that I am having reservations about knee mill sitting in my small garage and very rarely getting used. Let alone moving something that size and setting it up. And I'm not having any luck locating a small mill used anywhere. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. New ones that look like they'd be sturdier than a milling attachment are $3K and up. Those are lacking any power feeds or a DRO so I question if that's really a good choice given what I want to do. Perhaps I underestimate the capacity of the mini-mills but I'm not sure I'd be much better off than a milling attachment. Again, maybe I've got that wrong.
    So these considerations are what has led me here. I'm not convinced one way or another yet, just thinking about it. Short of a knee mill I'm going to have to take light cuts and go slow no matter what I choose it seems.

    And you aren't bothering me at all with your questions. I'm asking myself the same ones so I get it.

    There's another aspect to my thinking as well. I won't bore anyone with details but I had medical problems that made it impossible for me to work on this hobby for several years. Consequently my lathe sat untouched for 5 years. I like to think that's behind me but as I never saw those problems coming in the first place I'm not betting there's no chance of them returning. So I'm reluctant to invest in another large machine just yet. I've no idea how long my reprieve will last and my wife doesn't need to deal with more stuff if I become completely incapacitated.
    Last edited by Hannibal; 10-17-2022 at 10:04 PM.

  8. #48
    Boolit Master
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    The fact about small mills is they are heavy.....a mill/drill will be around 1/2ton........any kind of small freestanding mill will be around 1 ton....a Bridgeport is somewhat over 1 ton........no problem if you want it in a drive in carport,but heavy for a basement.

  9. #49
    Boolit Grand Master

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    An small angle plate one side drilled to mount to the cross slide the up right side for your compound and a small vise. Having the same pattern cut in the angle plate as the cross slide would allow for the compound to be set for angles. This will give all 3 axis of movement.
    It will be a lot of set up as the angle plate will need to be indicated in square to the spindle, the compound square to the cross slide and the vise indicated square.

    Rough estimate would be a 4" X 4" angle plate with 1 or 2 ribs to make it stiffer. Its hard to judge size in your picture.

  10. #50
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    I once saw a milling attachment on a lathe being used to cut a dovetail and the workpiece was jumping around. Looked like it was going to ruin the workpiece. That was over 50 years ago, so I don't remember any details. The main problem with a milling attachment I can see is ability to hold the workpiece in such a manner as to make the cut, depemds on what you are trying to do. Short cuts on small workpieces will not be as much trouble as on large workpieces such as a dovetail on the muzzle end of a barrel.
    Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.

  11. #51
    Boolit Master
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    I had a milling attachment for a big lathe........very useful for cutting keyways in a shaft thats being turned ,saving a lot of time ........I used it once to cut a long (20ft) acme screw thread in a length of steel bar

  12. #52
    Boolit Grand Master uscra112's Avatar
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    There are accessory 5C collet chucks for the SB 10 Heavy. The native spindle nose is Morse something-or-other. I bought a 5C setup from a guy in Massachusetts before I even set up my machine 11 years ago. His web site appears to have gone dormant. Still there but security certificate has not been renewed since May 03, 2020.
    Cognitive Dissident

  13. #53
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    Mrpete222 has quite a number of videos on YouTube about milling attachments on lathes. In my opinion their usefulness is quite limited.

  14. #54
    Boolit Grand Master uscra112's Avatar
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    Then there are these things:

    https://smithy.com/
    Cognitive Dissident

  15. #55
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    I've got a small ex-college Colchester bantam lathe and also have a milling attachment for it - all I can say is, if the chips are down and you really, really need to mill a small part, it will work, they are not rigid enough for anything but light duty with small parts.
    Around 6-7 years ago I bought a small Chinese hobby mill and fitted a DRO and been very pleased with it.



    Last edited by 1066; 10-20-2022 at 06:04 PM.

  16. #56
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    I picked up a Benchmaster on craigslist- very, very light duty, but has done everything I've asked of it. Restored and put a base under it.
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Scored tooling at swap meets and what not.

    I loved a book by Harold Hall "Milling for the home machinist", it has progressive projects- to make your own fixtures and what not. By progressive I mean you use the earlier projects to make the later projects so they start basic and you use what you've just made to make the next project.
    The essence of education is self reliance- T.H. White.

    Currently seeking wood carving tools, wood planes, froes, scorps, spokeshaves... etc....

  17. #57
    Boolit Master almar's Avatar
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    what kind of work do you plan on doing? Sherline is a mini mill that does everything i need it to but i make small parts with alot of precision. They have alot of tooling and you can get some ultra high end headstocks and motors for it from glock cnc. But its also alot of $. I did not have a proper workshop at the time so i needed something small and the sherline was it. But bigger that that i would go for a precision mathews.
    “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
    ― Winston S. Churchill

  18. #58
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    I built a fairly hefty milling attachment for my lathe. 13 inch swing, so not a tiny lathe. It has minimal use, very light cuts needed, challenging to setup, and just not that convenient. I since bought a mid sized tabletop mill, weight is around 300#, and its 1000 times more useful than the milling attachment. Just my 2 cents(Canadian currency) so really not worth that much! LOL!


    Stomp
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  19. #59
    Boolit Master Hannibal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 45stomp View Post
    I built a fairly hefty milling attachment for my lathe. 13 inch swing, so not a tiny lathe. It has minimal use, very light cuts needed, challenging to setup, and just not that convenient. I since bought a mid sized tabletop mill, weight is around 300#, and its 1000 times more useful than the milling attachment. Just my 2 cents(Canadian currency) so really not worth that much! LOL!


    Stomp
    Everyone tells me that the milling attachments are very limited so far as their usefulness goes so I've decided to hold off until I can locate a small mill somewhere. Keeping my eyes open and I'm confident that something will turn up eventually.

  20. #60
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    It's easy to get in a rut thinking you only have one real project you want to do ...
    Then you finally get a mill and do a few simple things like make t nuts to get yourself acquainted with it , then you start planning how your gonna attack that pet project . Next thing you know you've got 12 projects lined up and wonder why it took ya so long to get a mill .

    I think your making a smart decision going with a small mill over an attachment .

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