endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Discussion on all milling machines vertical & horizontal, including but not limited to Bridgeports, Hardinge, South Bend, Clausing, Van Norman, including imports.

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mikechoochoo
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Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:37 pm

endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by mikechoochoo »

Hi, I have a small horizontal mill with a aftermarket vertical head. The head has a 1/2 inch maxim end mill capacity and uses collets. There is no other way to hold endmills. Should I worry about the mills walking out of the collet since this was the way the head was designed to be used?
The second thing is is it worth it to have some larger end mills to use in the horizontal spindle instead of the arbor, or is that something that is seldom done?

Thanks,
Mike
John Evans
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by John Evans »

if you don't try to heavy depth of cut radially shouldn't have a issue. End mills horizontally sure but don't go out of your way to get them in larger sizes unless you have a need. Sometimes you got to remember a horizontal is just a vertical turned 90*.
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Harold_V
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by Harold_V »

There are far more end mills held in collets than there are held in holders. They work fine, assuming you have a sense of how tight the drawbar should be, and that the shanks are clean and dry when inserted in the collet. Any lubrication on the gripping surfaces isn't a good idea, but light lubrication for the collet and spindle taper is a good idea.

Large end mills are expensive, but if you find you can justify their cost, there's absolutely nothing wrong with using larger ones in the horizontal spindle. It's a little less convenient to mill in that position, as it's not easy to see what's going on (I'm assuming a vise mounted vertically, on an angle plate), but on the positive side, chips tend to fall away from the cut.

H
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earlgo
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by earlgo »

My horizontal mill has a vertical head and it is nearly useless. This shows how much headspace is available at the maximum.
headspace with vertical head
headspace with vertical head
Don't be afraid to use your horizontal mill with an R8 adapter and end mills. It works just fine, although a bit more difficult to see what you are doing, as was previously noted.
setup with vise vertical
setup with vise vertical
One can also do this.
R-8 adapter and vise
R-8 adapter and vise
Try this with a vertical mill.
slab mill
slab mill
Just my opinion.
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Before you do anything, you must do something else first. - Washington's principle.
discodan
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by discodan »

Mikechoochoo, what machine do you have and what make of vertical head? How about a pic? I have a Pratt ^Whitney 3C horizontal bench mill.
SteveM
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by SteveM »

On the Pratt & Whitney 3C, the end mills are held in collets, as there were no end mill holders available from the manufacturer (based on the user manual and sales catalog for the machine).

The collets, however, are not tightened with a handwheel, but with a wrench about 6" long on a fine thread, so you can really get some bit on the end mill. It's the wrench on the top middle in the picture.

Image

I thought about making arbors that looked like solid collets (no cuts in the end) and had a 1/2" hole in them and a grub screw on the side. That way I can lock the Weldon shank and have an end mill with less overhang than using something like an end mill holder.

Steve
Jaxian
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by Jaxian »

This isn't in a particularly small horizontal mill (No.4 Cincinnati) but you can just scale it to the size of your machine. I had to fix some parts for a guys backhoe that had wallowed out the pivot holes pretty badly. Boring bar I had wasn't rigid enough for the very rough surface and long stick out and a reamer didn't clean it up either.

So I decided to just oversize the hole a bit and make a new pivot pin. So the setup in the picture is a 1-19/32" (1.593") endmill in a TG150 collet held in a extended CAT50 holder from a horizontal CNC mill. You can get great prices on used 50 taper CNC stuff and use it in old horizontal mills. This was about 2 years ago before the mill got moved into the new shop space...away from my car.

Usually on old low rpm (max 1300) high torque machines collets are a no no as the huge torque multiplication can cause slippage taking big bites at low speeds but TG collets have never let me down. I have TG 100,150,200 for that machine. I also use the TG 75 and TG100 in my CNC and bury them and have never had one slip.
20170510_184649.jpg
20170510_194852.jpg
And before I got a CAT50 to Morse taper adapter to run big drills I would just use endmills to hog out material. Again using TG collets. I only used the one in the picture on aluminum though so never tested it on steel. But it didn't slip or pull out. R8 collet with a little 1/8" endmill for scale.
IMG_20140620_134811_260.jpg
spro
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by spro »

Really neat milling, " eye candy" here, folks. Thanks for sharing !
johnfreese
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Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by johnfreese »

Back to the question about endmills walking out of the collet: They can. Solve the problem by switching to end mill holders. I am guessing your vertical head uses 2MT collets. 2MT end mill holders are readily available.
mikechoochoo
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Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:37 pm

Re: endmills in collets, and using in horizontal mill

Post by mikechoochoo »

The mill is a Hardinge UM with a Rusnok head on the over arm, it uses Y collets and has about 10 inches from the collet to the table. It has its limitations but I got it cheap enough.
Mike
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