Small Mill Machine - Looking To Buy

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Originally Posted by workingonit

Sneaking suspicion that Herless was a Hare and Forbes product, later Hafco, and now Machineryhouse.

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Herless was a company in Melbourne, owned by Herb Lesser, hence the name. Like Hare and Forbes they sold a lot of Taiwanese machines rebranded with their name.

Cheers,
Mick.

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Originally Posted by workingonit

Despite having a mill I will often take a simple drilling task to a pedestal drill or even cordless hand drill [tonguewink]

Seems like you have a mill in mind. Try and get digital readout included if you can.

What accessories are you thinking of getting?

Clamp kits are very useful if not a must. Fairly cheap.

A run of the mill (pun) hardware vice is not so good, it will get you by on some things, otherwise get a milling vice or resort to the clamp kit. Good vice is some what expensive.

Some squared blocks are handy and a right angle square is a necessity. Check the square against a point on a straight edge, rule a line from the point, flip the square and make a second line from the same point. If the lines are exactly on each other full length then fine. otherwise divergent lines indicate the rule is not square. A good square is cheap - I use a made in the USA fibre plastic handle stainless blade from Bunnings.

Carbide scribe for marking steel. Don't get the retractable type. Cheap.

Centre drill is good for creating an accurate start hole in the steel. It is designed not to wander as it starts the hole. Cheap.

High speed steel mills and drills are fine for many applications, but is a little flexible. Carbide cuts most things, is far less flexible giving more accurate results, keeps a keen edge longer, but don't drop it or it will shatter. You will also have to think about how you are going to sharpen all these things. High speed steel moderate cost, carbide a bit more.

Some mills come with a regular chuck, has a broad range of capacity, ok for general drilling and depending on the quality may get adequate milling results. Collets are better, but you need many collets to cover the range of drill sizes - and don't skimp on the quality of a collet set - real cheap sets have few flutes in the spring body allowing the cutting tool to walk out of the collet and into your mill deck. Reasonably expensive.

Sometimes you will want to centre a hole that needs upsizing, or bring an edge into alignment with your cutting tool. Here you will need some sort of edge finder. Fairly cheap.

A good mill can be run in reverse, often for a choice between regular and step climbing(?) (terminology escapes me). If reversible then probably avoid chucks and the like that are screwed on, unless the vendor can guarantee they will not unscrew when in reverse - the better option is a mill that has draw bars to hold the tool on. Not that you are at the lathe stage (yet), but the same principles apply, preference being cam lock chucks instead of threaded chucks.

FreeCAD is...wait for it...free! [wink11]

I did about 2 of the short beginners online tutorials before being able to take off on my own.

The cost in time is another matter.

There are a few free or very cheap CAD systems. Some of the less expensive go on to require add-ons and more dollars.

My understanding is CNC relates well to solid modelling ie FreeCAD.

CNC at the moment does not get on well with mesh modelling.

You can do sophisticated design using mesh surfaces - creating creatures for movie animation for example. Simple to pull/push/drag mesh to make an adjustment to get the shape you want. However, CNC sees a rough, ill defined surface, sometimes with gaps in the framework.

In solid modelling you take for example standard well defined shapes like cubes, circles, cones etc then add them, subtract then, difference them etc until you get the shape you want. You can also use lofts, rotated profiles, sweeps etc for shape development. More time consuming, but the math behind the program can work with this to give clearly defined shapes that CNC can use.

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Workingonit, I think you are probably referring to Conventional and Climb Milling. With conventional milling the cutter pushes into the job it is cutting like a bulldozer blade, whereas with climb milling, the cutter pulls the job into it like a backhoe bucket. Climb milling requires a more rigid setup and a machine with small amounts of backlash, but gives a better finish. Conventional milling is often used for roughing and Climb milling used for finishing cuts. The spindle runs in the same direction, but the feed direction is reversed for conventional to climb milling. The main reason for having a reversing spindle would be for tapping holes and boring holes. Running the spindle in reverse means you can bore a hole with a right hand tool.

Cheers,
Mick.

Hi All,

I have just purchased the mill that going bush has and added a link too. This one:

Geared Head Dovetail Milling & Drilling Machine 1100W/240V/ (Mill Drill) | eBay

I see on 'the net' there are a lot of mods done to these. From DRO to CNC.

For starters Ill be happy to unpack and use in its 'delivered' state.

Now to research equipment buying and making tool blocks etc. Making them as suggested by Chops!

Now going to reread thread to see what tips I need to be taking on board and preparing to do. Including buying some suitable tools to start me off.

Thank you to those who have contributed and advised. Will continue to read and learn.

Chilly

Great stuff Chilly :)

I'm keen to hear what tooling you end up buying to get you started, so keep updating!!

On a related front, after you started this thread I got sucked into a few milling videos on Youtube including some about milling vices. There are some vices by Glacern in the states that are pure tool porn (with a price to match), but "This Old Tony" did a strip down review on a Vertex VA4 vice which showed it was pretty accurate. They are available here through Machinerywarehouse for about $250 and struck me as likely being a good fit for a hobbyist.
Bearing in mind that I've got zero milling experience - but can use Google ;)

Steve

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Originally Posted by steveG

Great stuff Chilly :)

I'm keen to hear what tooling you end up buying to get you started, so keep updating!!

On a related front, after you started this thread I got sucked into a few milling videos on Youtube including some about milling vices. There are some vices by Glacern in the states that are pure tool porn (with a price to match), but "This Old Tony" did a strip down review on a Vertex VA4 vice which showed it was pretty accurate. They are available here through Machinerywarehouse for about $250 and struck me as likely being a good fit for a hobbyist.
Bearing in mind that I've got zero milling experience - but can use Google ;)

Steve

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Hi Steve,

Good info. Thank you! I will have a look at make a decision on this vice.

Lots of videos on you tube....can spend many an hour watching...speaking from some newly gained experience.

Going to have a bot of work to do now. Will have to make a bench for it. Will be a few weeks before that happens....still cannot drive but hopefully will get the ok in a couple of weeks.

Not sure on what tooling to get first so will take advise and do some you tube research as well as net reading.

Chilly

Hi Goingbush,

What Vice did you buy? 4inch?

Chilly

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Originally Posted by Chilly

Hi Goingbush,

What Vice did you buy? 4inch?

Chilly

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o...where did you get your DRO stuff from...any advice on doing this?

Thanks,

Chilly

I'll take some photos of my tooling & accessories.

I bought Igaging scales off eBay and TouchDRO from Yuryis Toys
TouchDRO Project
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Yuriy's Toys

I got the 4" 10KG version of this vice. Though I have not needed the swivel base as yet. I just bolt the vice direct to the the mill table .
5" (125mm) Precision Milling Lathe Machine Vice + Swivel Base, Heavy Duty 15kg | eBay

Chilly,

I dont know if your on Facebook but I have posted some photos of my DRO setup on the Milling Machine group.

Let me know if you can view this,

Log in to Facebook | Facebook

cheers Don

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Originally Posted by goingbush

I'll take some photos of my tooling & accessories.

I bought Igaging scales off eBay and TouchDRO from Yuryis Toys
TouchDRO Project
|
Yuriy's Toys

I got the 4" 10KG version of this vice. Though I have not needed the swivel base as yet. I just bolt the vice direct to the the mill table .
5" (125mm) Precision Milling Lathe Machine Vice + Swivel Base, Heavy Duty 15kg | eBay

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I have been reading Yurlys toys....still confused. Will have to read a bit more. Did you buy the board etc from him too? Was not sure what way to go with the table measures.

Still waiting delivery of mill.....seems to be taking ages to get from Adelaide to Newcastle....let alone to me...ho hum!!

Trying to work out the differences in the two vices people seem to use. I have always used ones like you have but a lot of you tube videos show a different more expensive vine....any thoughts on this?
Thanks