The Home Machinist!

Here's a quickie I made to ease alignment of my benchtop mill's DRO

10mmm aluminium bar, 6 holes all threaded.
2 pairs in the bar faces at right angles, just intersecting, accepting magnets or retaining screws.
1 pair at the end accept DTI or retaining screw.

This allows the DTI to clamp in the side or end of the bar and allows magnets to be clamped protruding from any of the four sides


http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158 ... Holder.jpg

It clamps to any reasonably flat face well enough to allow the DTI to be used accurately and repeatably, the clamp screws can be released & re-tightened to allow the magnets to seat well on the surface.

This shot also shows the bottom mount for the round column, the column has a key & gib strips & so keeps alignment nicely, the top mount had to be made to clear the key.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158 ... nMount.jpg


I managed to set the scales to within .001 over their operating length (300mm) the final shot shows the mill with VFD, DRO, 7X speed increaser with reaction bar and flexible pipe & nozzle for air to clear chips

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158 ... andAir.jpg

I'm looking at modifying an airline oiler to drip WD40 into the air, not to mist, just to regularly spit small droplets at the work.

Nick

"DTI"?

Distance-Travel-Indicator?

John

Dial Test Indicator in good old Blighty.
Dial Guage has the slidy in & out rod, Dial Test Indicator has the little wiggly finger and usually reads on a finer scale
Nick

Hey !

You have one of those EMCO mill conversions that they used to sell for people with a 3 in 1 to move the mill head into a standalone mill.

I sold a power supply unit not long ago that fit that EMCO mill.
I had no idea that those existed after I sold it. Hope that I don’t have to kick myself one of these days.

Great idea, I have a bunch of those powerful little magnets. I’ll keep that one my next list.

Jose,
the head was in a crate at the back of the store room in my local engineering shop, the base is home brewed with an italian milling table bolted on giving 300x300 travel.

This allows me to use a Dremel or Rotozip high speed tool in front of the head on an adapter for fine work or hard materials, I was machining amber for a ring using a 2mm carbide burr with this setup

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158 ... C00775.jpg

When I finally get around to a CNC retro fit It'll allow me to use the high speed tools for very fine work and engraving,
Regards,
Nick