Cheap Chinese Mill-drill

A drill chuck won't live long if you use it to hold endmills.

Taper mounted chucks are *not* to be used in side loaded applications like milling. Order a proper collet for $10 or end mill holder for $20 from Enco.

Pete C.

That's pretty much what I figured: It doesn't work and now I know it can't. Thanks! I'll start checking out Enco. Do you have a URL for them, perhaps?

Thank you. I kind of figured as much. Now I know.

See my reply to Pete C.

My experience with milling has been limited to using a clamp-on keyway cutter on shafting except for a very little time using a Bridgeport, which a _real_ machinist set up. :)

Which proves again that you should never, ever try to use a drill chuck to hold an end mill for anything but plunge work.

Collets and/or end-mill holders are cheap enough and easy to find. Spend a few bucks and do it right before some one gets hurt. Think of the chuck coming lose at high speed with an end-mill or cutter and going across the shop.

Unless the shop is next to broke I suggest an ER collet holder adapter. Very tight grip on the tooling shanks, wide clamp range, and easy to change the tooling.

Email me if you need some suggested sources.

Uncle George

...And the other two major players (as far as I know, I'm sure there are others, these one have decent web ordering/presence)

That's the one! Wonder why I didn't find it. I missed it somehow. Poor choice of search terms maybe.

Thanks.

That's turned out to be a little bit of an understatement!

I see your point. I have a heckuva lot to learn. (obviously) Thanks to rcm, it might be a less painful process.

I'll start looking for sure.

Thank you. John

Should use R8 collects.

You can get a cheap set of 13 collets (1/8" to 7/8" by 16ths) for $45 part number 505-5022 Or just buy the few sizes you need for $7 each. These are definately NOT top of the line but should be just fine for your machine.

You might want to get the full set of el-cheapo end mills to match: 4 flute 3/16" to 3/4" by 1/16th for $35 P/N 320-9005

Cheers.

John Husvar wrote:

Dude, check out:

Lots of info there. That's the Sieg Mini-mill, same one as available from Harbor Freight, Grizzly, etc. I have one. Not a bad piece of gear, especially for the money.

I got collets in all sizes from:

I haven't tried them yet, but I can only assume they work fine. You'll note there are a lot of cool "upgrades" and options for those mills available there, too. They even have a "spare parts" kit of the cheap and commonly broken parts that you might encounter. You probably want:

Note they even show the Cummins 7877 as compatible. Very nice site. Probably not the cheapest place around, but they seem to have stock when they say they do, they ship fast, and they ship right (in my limited experience with them).

--Donnie

In addition to msc/enco [actually different sided of the same company see:

?pr=END_MILL_HOLDER_W_R-8_SHANK&id=29[fwit -- I find the holders are better than the collets but cut-down on the headroom.

collet c.6$US of 6 c. 24$US]

collet to R8 adapter -- good if you change tools frequently]

3/8 shank endmills and a 3/8 R8 holder 30$US set of holders

One trick is to get a 1 inch R8 holder and make up adapters for your smaller tooling from 1 inch drill rod. Quick change tooling cheap.

Uncle George

John That's the same mill I have, but mine came from Homier. Your boss got a bargain at $250. I would have bought it for that, even though I have one already.

Save the drill chuck for drilling when you need a very accurately placed hole. Get at least a 3/8" R8 collet for that endmill. As someone else said, just get a cheap set from any of a number of places. About $5 each , less in sets. You will need a rack. I made one from 1x4 pine, but you can buy one for

--Do yourself a favor and fire your boss.. ;-)

For a good introductory text see

This may be available for less $ through amazon, etc.

Uncle George

Tempting sometimes! :)

Seriously, we could afford a bigger, better mill, but it'd be such overkill for what we do that it wouldn't make sense. About the most we'll ever do with this thing is make or lengthen slots in wheelchair adaptive equipment. Rarely, we might mill a piece to fit it into a tight spot.

I'll probably work it harder making some tee-nuts and clamping pieces than I ever will actually making or modifying parts. Heck, A drill press vise is most likely the biggest thing we'll ever need for it. That or a small proper milling vise will hold anything we're likely to put on it.

I managed to get a little job done yesterday doing everything wrong and holding the workpieces in our drill press vise, which I clamped to the mill's table with 3/8 hex head bolts and washers. Nothing got away (except the chuck itself because I was too dumb to remember you can't hold endmills in drill chucks) and the cuts did get made.

One of these days I might even get to having some vague idea what I'm doing.

One thing for sure, I'll add one more skill to my repertoire soon as I do get that vague idea. And I like that. :)

Save yourself a lot of time and use carriage bolts. You will need to grind a little of the top of the head and the sides to fit your table slots. Belt sander works fine for this. Carriage bolts are not [generally] grade 8 but on a low power machine they will be fine. Make up a bunch in different lengths.

Uncle George

R8 is common as dirt.

Dont use the chuck.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Kinda got that message -- as well as discovering to my dismay that it just doesn't work. :)

This has gotta be the most helpful newsgroup on Usenet, maybe in a dead heat with sci.engr.joining.welding

Just downright awesome, the amount of expertise in those two groups!