Desirable Tooling/Accessories for a Milling Machine

An indexing head. Yes you can use dividing head & rotary table, but the thing I use most on my manual mill apart from the vice is an old anonymous French or Belgian index head, 8" 3-jaw chuck, adjustable to any angle between H &V, indexes anything from 2 to to 64 per rev. Tried to sell it a couple of years ago, very glad there were no takers

Autolock chuck(s) A fair sized face mill or two Boring & facing head (or at least a boring head)

I'm pretty sure I have a spare tailstock buried somewhere, it'll turn up in the fullness of time

Cheers Tim

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Your floor is getting as hard to see as John S's !! :-))

Peter

A good boring head has to be high on my list. I don't have a good one - only an import - but do hanker after a Wohlhaupter.

Regards

Charles

Best thing I fitted to my Bridgeport was a power lift to the knee - maybe just a sign of age but what a blessing ! If the Beaver is kneeliftless then fit one of the Align 'Servo knockoffs'. Money well spent at arround the £200 mark or cheaper if you bring one in from eBay in the states.

Decent sized tilting table also indispensible (though not used EVERY day )

AWEM

I think it overtook his a year or so ago. Trouble is I only work part time in my workshop, so I struggle with chaos which just would drive even me to sort it out if I was in there full time The pressure to get all the other work done is greater than the pressure I put on myself to get more organised :-(

Cheers Tim

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Yes, I got one to go with my first mill, thought it would be essential. It was, I've used it once in about 8 years - but couldn't have done that job without it!

Cheers Tim

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Has got that :-))

Peter

Get a Deckel FP1 or an Alexander Master Toolmaker milling machine, i

its got all its correct original kit with it you won't need much els at all. I have had various Centecs which are very nice too, but just wee bit small. I agree on the comments about an indexing head though, much easier an quicker than rigging up a full blown dividing head for most jobs.

-- pgp00

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Or if you are tight you can get a 29 quid spin indexer off J&L, do a bit of jiggery pokery on the front of the spindle and it will handle ER32 collets as well as 5C's.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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John Stevenson treated us to a look at his bench ..................

I feel better now - it looks just like mine!

Mike

We have looked into the various collet types and styles, and have ended up with Erickson Double-Angle types and the more conventional Clarkson type.

Any pros and cons for these?

Peter

The great thing about the screwed Clarkson type is that the cutters

*won't* shift under load if properly fitted, there's always going to be a question mark with plain collets. Snag is, they won't hold plain shank cutters without a bit of fiddling. I've got both types as a result of buying a job lot of QC30 tooling for my Bridgeport. If buying new, though, the ER type is a better bet than the DA IMO because of their greater range per collet. There are special 'milling nuts' available for ER chucks to give greater clamping force, either through ball bearings or, I believe, low-friction coatings.

Cheers Tim

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Ok John, give us a clue what jiggery pokery was involved

Cheers Tim

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The end of the cheap spin indexers has a short parallel piece on it. This is just above the diameter of the thread for an ER 32 nut, 40 x

1.5 or similar. They are hard but a carbide single point tool will just handle it. Best to rough it out first then swap tips for the last spring cuts. That takes care of the spindle nose.

You then need a double angled space to convert from 5C down to ER32. Specs are in the books or just measure a couple of collets. I don't have a drawing, it was the usual one off - touch to fit routine. Both tapers can be cut at one setting then the piece parted off so you are guaranteed concentricity. It's only a spacer so no slits or anything else is needed.

That's it, don' think it took me an hour to do.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Me?

handle

I was looking at it and wondering about that the other day, when I eventually got around to running a hone down the inside of the spindle so I could get the collets in;-)

My next mill accessory will be making a quick release nut for the quill stop, I have just been doing something that required the stop going up and down loads of times. I ended up using the chuck of a cordless drill pushed against the nut to run it up and down..

It's a bit more work but a Myford or Boxford nosepiece on the end of a hollow dummy 5C collet makes it possible to mount 3 or 4 jaw chucks or even a faceplate for larger work.

Mine is a single piece adapter which permits 1" thru bore but it may be easier to use a 1" stub gripped in a standard 1" 5C collet and settle for 3/4" thrubore.

Jim

It souns as though I'm not alone in having a problem with 5C collets a bit tight on the diameter. I started off with some cheap J&L special Chinese metric collets, no problem on diameter with any of my 5C stuff (*not* cheap Chinese). Main problem with them is some of the threads are awful, runout is generally good enough for what I do.Then got some used older imperial size 'real' collets, mix of Hardinge & others. Some of these are so tight in my chucks/adapters as to be unuseable. Probably just need a whisker polished off them, but has anyone else come across this?

Talking of 5C, now my Student lathe has gone I've got a 5C nose adapter, plus a drawtube (ex Harrison with a spacer to adapt it for the Student) for disposal. Email me if interested before i put it on ebay or a certain workshop ads site.

Cheers Tim

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My collets are a mix of Crawfords and Hardinge, I did check them and they are all within a few tenths on diam. they were all a tight fit in the jandl indexer. The indexer could also do with a positive stop to lock it for tightening the drawbar, I spose a hole through the body into the spindle would do the job. but it was well worth the 29squid it cost.

Peter, Guessing the type of work that this Beaver will be asked to do on your engines, you might consider a set of 2 piece vises or loose vises. Chronos has some pic's on their web site, a bit dark but understandable.

I favor the loose model more than the two piece. The 2 piece is a bit limited in where you can get these mounted. The loose ones can be used either as a pair , singely against a fixed bed block or two at an angle to a fixed bed block.

Very handy when you have weird shapes to hold.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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