Mill/Drill spindle play?

I think you mean angular play. It has to have axial play for the quill to go up and down (unless the motor and pulleys ride up/down with the chuck.) Drilling won't cause chatter, because the cutting action is pretty continuous. But, milling will definitely cause chatter when a cutting tooth is not buried in the work all the time. The worst is when the spindle is springy in the torsion mode and winds up during the cut, then jumps ahead when the tooth pops free of the work. I had a Bridgeport M head mill that had that problem. I put brass shims on the sides of the pulley splines, in balanced pairs, on what would normally be the "coasting" faces, as opposed to the "driving" faces, to take up the slack. It was amazing how much quieter it ran!

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson
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Hi,

I recently aquired an import mill/drill from HF. I noticed that there seems to be a lot of axial play in the splined spindle shaft where it mates with the pulley I would suppose. It seems like this could cause a lot of unnecessary chatter. So my question is how much play is normal here?

Thanks Mike

Reply to
Mike H

I bent them over on the flanges of the spline. it is tricky fitting it all together, but once you get them in there, they last a year or so. Eventually the rubbing wears them out, and you have to do it over again. But, a year of quiet is worth the trouble!

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Hmm. I was wondering about that! How did you secure them so they didn't pop out when the quill was raised up?

Jim

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Reply to
jim rozen

I have a mill/drill and have found that it is not possible to take a heavy cut in steel, I disassembled the head and found that the splines were a very loose radial fit.The spindle has two bearings,one at the top of the female spline and the second at the bottom of the male spline, when the quill is at full extension the interface of the male and female splines acts like a limited motion universal joint due to the very loose fit and the center line of the spindle starts to orbit as well as rotate. This causes lots of noise and shaking and frequently breaks the cutter being used. Just my opinion, what do you think? Derek Millard

Reply to
derek millard

Yup, that is exactly what I was talking about. Rotation of the spindle would have to be angular play, and many older machines suffer from it.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

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