Success! Homebrew R8 spindle mill

Just made the first cut, truing up the spindle face on the built mostly from scratch mill I have been working on since...well too long.

I have been accumulating parts for years and finally had a project that really needed an horizontal spindle mill with a really big Z.

Wife isn't that interested to hear about it (parts of it have been cluttering up the place for...Way Too Long) so I gotta share here. =)

Why didn't I just buy a mill? Maybe I'll field that one another day.

Relieved that it works,

StaticsJason

Reply to
Statics
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Congrats! Pictures, we need pictures.

Lane

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lane

Did you make the spindle from scratch? If so, I'd be interested to hear the details on making the R8 socket. I'm working on making a new spindle to convert my Van Norman mill.

-JT

Statics wrote:

Reply to
Jeff Taylor

Yes, I used 1.5" dia 1/4 wall drawn tubing for the spindle. For the bearing set, I originally bought timken tapered roller bearings but to save time while I make a vertical spindle with them, just settled on buying mounted flange bearings from surplus center. I bought an xy table (6" by 19" working surface) online for about $100 and the rest I built.

Because an R8 shank is slightly under 1" dia, installing a short sleeve to bore in place will eliminate eccentricity and eliminate deep hole drilling/boring.

To clarify, I made the first cut with a boring bar mounted in an index head on the table. I will not get to bore the socket until monday. To cut the taper I'll just unbolt the table, remount at the proper angle and use the y to feed the boring bar.

I had an interesting time getting the drive pulley on the spindle shaft - I bored the hub to 0.001 shaft clearance before I welded it into the pulley. After welding it shrunk considerably because the body of the pulley prevented free expansion. Ugh. If I had it to do over again...

StaticsJason

Reply to
Statics

Reply to
Jeff Taylor

Left it out for now. See the discussion on rcm a while back about running bridgeport size machines without them.

For my purposes, less than 1 hp transmitted 95% of the time, I will see how it runs without it. If it slips too much I think I may add a larger diameter sleeve around the spindle nose and bore it for the larger sizes of single angle collets. One of these days when I get time I am going to build a solid body s.a. collet chuck for the lathe. Might be nice to have tooling interchangeable between them with no loss of functionality (R8 in a lathe with no thru chuck capability? not for me).

If it ends up needing it I will locktite in a setscrew with the correct diameter dog point.

StaticsJason

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Statics

Reply to
ChuckMartin

That's the Shopmaster/Shoptask Users Group. I didn't see the link to the parts source. Can you be more specific?

Thanks, Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

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