I am looking for a website or some such that lists milling projects in ascending order of difficulty. Here my goal is not to "make something useful", but go through some exercises to learn and improve my milling techniques. Starting from simple, to more complicated.
mill a 1x2x3" block better to mill this a few thou oversize, harden $ grind to size, but milling a rectangular block is a good basic skill
mill a workstop that fits over a Kurt vise jaw should take just a few hours, you will use this over and over, I have plans I could scan & post
mill some Aloris-type toolholders for your lathe will use your rectangular block skills from above adds drilling, tapping, slotting, dovetail milling to size
Grant, I would be interested. I know that I personally need to make some sort of a thing that goes over a jaw and has a vertical slit, for holding round objects upright.
I do have a 6" Kurt style jaw, a $61 Chinese replica of a Kurt vise.
I do not have a lathe yet, but I get your idea -- I will indeed try to think of various work holding devices that would be usable with my mill. I will start with a vertically slitted jaw insert. Thanks a lot.
Not the way to go IMO. Get the 2 piece 5C block set. One is square and the other hex, and then you just grab your part in a collet and then into the vise. Easy to index too, doing 2,3,4 or 6 sides.
I'm not going to be able to scan anything soon - I'm leaving town for a week, may forget it by the time I get home. Send me an email offline in about a week, I'll get you those plans.
To email me, grab my email address from the graphic depicted here:
Hi Iggy, just started the milling machine part of my trade course - they have what you want, starting with the machining true of a block of cast iron, then progressing until it finally becomes a V-Block....(then you mill the clamp for it...)happy to copy them as PDF and send to you if you want them....
And each part introduces you to a new aspect of machine operation - first week, learnt what the controls do, get a "feel" for them, stone the table and the vise, true up a vise on the table, change from vertical to horizontal mill ( its big bugger...)
An aside - they have some brand new Bridgeport mills, the instructors are paranoid about letting the kiddies get near them - they tend to want to hog out 10mm cuts and ignore any signs of distress from the machine. Beautifully, beautifully smooth, almost silent, machines.
Sorry they're so big, I wanted to make sure you could pick up the detail.
I made one of these in milling class years ago and have used it countless times.
GWE
Ignoramus26157 wrote:
Here are some suggestions:
mill a 1x2x3" block better to mill this a few thou oversize, harden $ grind to size, but milling a rectangular block is a good basic skill
mill a workstop that fits over a Kurt vise jaw should take just a few hours, you will use this over and over, I have plans I could scan & post
mill some Aloris-type toolholders for your lathe will use your rectangular block skills from above adds drilling, tapping, slotting, dovetail milling to size
Start looking for a lathe. You have a mill, TIG and presumably silverbrazing capability. Add a lathe to that and you'll never run out of projects for yourself, friends and neighbors.
Example: neighbor needs a shoulder bolt for a wonky lawnmower wheel.
Option 1: drive 15 minutes to dealer, stand in line (on Saturday) for
30 minutes only to be told by the guy behind the counter that he needs the serial number, model number, date of manufacture and sperm count of the assembler to look up the part he probably doesn't have anyway. Option 2: Chuck up a bit of barstock, turn to size, cut threads, take to mill and spin index (or hex collet block) and make a hex head. He'll be back in action in 20 minutes and you'll be Igor da Goodguy.
I think that I will look for a lathe in a few years, just not now. I do not want to buy too much stuff at once. (too much stuff is a relative term and most people would say that I already have too much stuff)
Just yesterday I visited a house, about 2.5 to 3x size of mine (and mine is not small, 3,450 sq ft above ground plus finished basement). A huge house. The guy is finishing building it. He has a shop the size of four typical 2 car garages, that he is going to use. He is a novice in machinery, looks like a rich person who wants to have some fun with machines. He plans to buy a lot of them. He is a good person. While it is great, I want to go a different route, to build a shop slowly, cheaply, and learning things along the way.
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