Milling on the lathe Vertical tslot table or vertical milling vise?

  1. Before anyone even starts a REAL milling machine is in the works but the 2 demons of all workshops are working against it Money and Especially space so until the new workshop is built i have a lathe and room for it but NOT a mill or even a Mill/Drill asian thingy

I know this is aimed mainly at the hobby people because most sane people would used a vertical mill for vertical milling and a lathe for turning. As i said though the time and Space demons are on me so to me it makes more sense to be able to do some limited milling in a lathe than to do nothing waiting for the mill

Has anyone used the Palmgren vertical vise miling attachment or a myford vertical table? which would be the most versatile to serve until i could get a proper milling machine?

Any help is appreciated

Reply to
Brent Philion
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I have done lathe work on the vertical mill:) Just put the work in the collet, and the lathe bit in the vice.

Reply to
Clark Magnuson

My first metalworking investment was a PRAZI lathe with the milling attachment. Used it for several years before advanced to an EMCO lathe with milling head, then a mill/drill.

The lathe/mill adapter is very limited in how big a part it can mill. Also, not very rigid. But it does get you going. Since both of the attachments you ask about attach to the cross slide on your lathe, you can determine the maximum length of a pass you can make.

How do you intend to hold the end-mill? Do you have a collet setup for the lathe? If you are going to use small end-mills, the maximum speed of the lathe may be a little slow.

Good luck! Paul

Reply to
pdrahn

I've only done a couple of milling projects in my Atlas 10F lathe, but it sure can be done. My lathe has the Atlas milling vise, which, I think, is similar to the palmgren. Don't plan on any heavy cuts. IMHO you HAVE to have a collet setup for the milling cutters, though. HSM has had several articles over the years where the author has done milling in the lathe. I was always jealous of Myford owners with that t-slot compound, too.

Pete Stanaitis

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Brent Phili> 1. Before anyone even starts a REAL milling machine is in the works but

Reply to
spaco

======================== First thing to do is to buy and read:

Milling Operations in the Lathe (Workshop Practice) Tubal Cain Milling Operations in the Lathe (Workshop Practice) Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book. List Price: £6.95 Our Price: £5.56 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details & conditions. You Save: £1.39 (20%) Powell's in the US generally has this in stock see

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second thing to do is to order one or more morse taper end mill adapters to fit your lathe. You can use a piece of "allthread" as a drawbar. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT TO USE A JACOBS TYPE DRILL CHUCK WITH OUR WITHOUT A DRAWBAR. You can also make a adapter to go on your face plate from a piece of 1 inch thick plate or bar.

Third thing is to *NEVER* attempt to climb cut [where the endmill tends to pull the part into the cut.] Even the best lathes have far too much backlash to do this.

Forth thing is to keep telling your self "its not a mill ... its not a mill..." and take light cuts.

Much high quality work has been done with a lathe adopted as a milling machine. It is not as convieient or fast.

The Palmgren vice allows easy vertical adjustment. I have never used the Myford vertical table, but this may be more rigid.

See

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see how we adopted a surplus compound slide for vertical adjustment to lathe milling. You may well be able to do the same thing with your Myford compound. Just make sure everything is rigid.

Uncle George

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

According to spaco :

Hmm ... consider the possibility of using a Morse Taper end mill holder which matches the spindle nose, and making a drawbar to hold it firmly in place. (For that matter, A Morse Taper collet could be used as well.

Hmm ... check with MLA for their casting kit for a T-slotted cross-slide for a South Bend. It may be the right dimensions to be machined to fit the Atlas as well. I considered that for my 12x24" Clausing, but the casting was just a bit too small for that one.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

I dont have a collet setup yet its in the "to get" list along with the 4 jaw

the lathe needs a tooling update since most of it is 50 years old and i will gradually deal with it and i want to swap out the old lanterns style toolpost for a quick change and so on

I think caution and milling SLOWLY and carefully will counteract some of the lack of rigidity but by the same token i know its a tradeoff i'm making until i can afford a real milling machine

but the question is am i better off with a vertical slide table and a T-slot clamping kit a la myford

or a vertical slide milling vise

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I know there are guys in this forum just WINCING seeing me look at these piddly things compared to a real mill

snipped-for-privacy@co> My first metalworking investment was a PRAZI lathe with the milling

Reply to
Brent Philion

Atlas actually had one that they made too?

I actually have a 10F that i'm using for this

as far as i can see i CAN buy a Myford slide and make it work on the 10F compound with minimal adapting

but you think it would be superior to a vise arrangement?

spaco wrote:

Reply to
Brent Philion

A morse taper collet is certainly usable but because you most likely will be changing mill cutters several times in any project, it will be much easier to use a end mill holder as this will require only the use of a allen [hex] key from the front of the spindle.

A morse taper collet must be have the draw bar slackened, tapped forward in the spindle, the end mill changed, and retightened. This gets old very quickly and there can be a tendency of the endmill to shift in/out of the collet.

For typical home shop machining you will only need one or possibly two holders 3/8 and 1/2 inch.

Uncle George

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

I already own the book and a few more in the series (workholding as an example)

Busybee tools carries them in canada

Endmill holder has gone from the "would be nice" pile to the necessary pile in my tooling update

Every book i've ever seen says not to do this on anythign short of a giant production machine a lathe is not a giant production mill

Can I say "it makes me want to buy the mill faster" instead =)

I only intend to use lathe milling until i can resolve my time and space issues and get a real mill and working area

Even with the section incomplete your website is amazing and has been bookmarked as i am an electronics telecom person entering into craft machining

Thanks very much

Brent Philion Ottawa Canada

Reply to
Brent Philion

They offer one made for the Atlas.

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Reply to
Rex B

Thank you for this information. It will go on my gift list.

Pete Stanaitis

Rex B wrote:

Reply to
spaco

So now that I take another look at this, why could you not just use a chunk of steel and machine it to the dimensions on the drawing, to fit your crossslide? Is it really that advantageous to use an iron casting?

Rex

Reply to
Rex B

According to Rex B :

("It" being the MLA cross-slide casting.)

Yes. The reasons which come to mind are:

1) Since the casting is close to final size and shape, there is less metal to machine away, and thus less waste.

You'll need to borrow time on somebody's milling machine if you don't already have one -- and given the reason for the T-slotted cross-slide, it would seem apparent that you don't have one. I don't think that you have enough travel on the existing cross-slide to get away with milling it in the lathe.

2) Cast iron tends to absorb vibration a lot better than steel does, so you have less contribution to chatter. 3) Cast iron on cast iron dovetails will wear better that steel on steel will. 4) I think that it will be easier to mill the T-slots in cast iron than in steel. (That said, I've milled a circular T-slot in a 6" diameter chunk of 12L14 -- probably the nicest machining steel readily available.)

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Maybe things have changed, but as of a couple of years ago MLA didn't have any of the Atlas T--slotted cross-slides for sale. Check first before getting your hopes up.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Henry

It looks like there is one there meant for the atlas but they make you buy the atlas table then the base and the milling slide instead of the southbend where the base is optional

Though i'd love to have a second set of eyes confirm that

Mike Henry wrote:

Reply to
Brent Philion

I didn't explain that very well. I meant that even though the table was listed on the MLA web site, they hadn't been able to get any castings the last time I checked. Things may well be different now as that was at least two years ago.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Henry

It looks like they have all the appropriate parts now but i dont trust my eyes to confirm

If the T-Slot cross slide and purpose milling slide are ready then it seems liek ti would be a much better thrid option

option 1 was to shoehorn a myford mlling attachment onto the top of my compound (Not rigid at all really)

Option 2 was to attach a palmgren horizontal vice to the toolpost on the same compound

this creates option 3 and seems to be the most solid and rigid solution to my problem as it seems to be purpose built for the Atlas rather than a shoehorning

as such i'm calling MLA in the morning as well

Brent

Mike Henry wrote:

Reply to
Brent Philion

I don't understand the page with the boring head.

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The pictures are probably supposed to be self-explanatory, but it's not working for me. I know how a boring head works, but I cannot figure out what the added part is for, made from square bar.

Reply to
Rex B

Since you don't have calibrations like a real boring head, you need some way to measure how far out you have set the tool bit. The extra block allows you to do that. Gingery uses a similar method in his books as well. --Glenn Lyford

Reply to
glyford

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