Homemade manual milling machine project
Oh yeah I forgot to mention I got a sweet deal on this Gilman slide dovetail ( darn it they took the pic off ebay) but I,ll post some pics up tomorrow, its got about 4 1/2 inches of very precise movement. Also got the Reliance controller today in excellent condition but I might need to replace one toggle switch. Now I,m waiting on the DC motor and I,m getting nervous becuz the guy hasn,t answered my emails. And I can only hope it pops up on my doorstep. Well see.....
Well I started to take some pics but I hold my head down in shame as I was not happy with the quality of what I produced. So due to a tap breaking off in one hole and when I mounted the mill head to the z axis I was very unhappy with my measurements. So I,m adding a 1/4 plate to do two things, one, make the mill head connection to z axis more rigid and two, cover up my screw ups. As far as the Ebay dc motor 10 days and still no response, I,ve decided if I get ripped off NO MORE EBAY. Pics will probably be tomorrow. Got to get back to the shop now......
Ok back from the shop and back to the drawing board. I finally realized why my stuff was screwed up. I was using 4 @ 1"thick steel blocks, unfortunetly they were not square at all. And so I set out making my measurements and marks for drilling. The only thing I had that were square was the z axis slide and the mill head. Everything in between was out of whack. I had tried grinding the blocks square with a angle grinder but I didn,t do every block( thats a lot of GRINDING). So I thought well if I measure down from the top of the slide on both the left side and right as long as my measurements were exact on both sides that I should be alright, right? WRONG. One thing I started to realize and not like about my mounting design was that from point a to point b I had to many connecting parts. So now the new plan is to reduce the parts which means the 60 + holes I drilled was just practice. So now I will go from having 8 plates to connect the head to the z axis to just 3. And everything is going to be grinded square before any more holes are drilled. Sorry pics are onhold until I get something worth taking a picture of....
P.S. the only good news I,ve had today was that the guy I bought my DC motor from finally returned my email and said motor was enroute.
P.S. the only good news I,ve had today was that the guy I bought my DC motor from finally returned my email and said motor was enroute.
It's certainly looking like a mill now. Well done, you must have been at the front of the queue for patience AND perseverance 
I'm also currently sorting out a benchtop mill but was lucky enough to ask the right question of the right person (for a different reason) and ended up with an Emco FB-2 6 speed geared head & column, although the column is round it has a means for accurately maintaining alignment with gib-strip adjustment.
Here it is with the base I'm making and the cross slide from my mill-drill while I find a metric one for finer work.
Motor is 3 phase 4 pole with Siemens Micromaster VFD giving a speed range of 10 to 2500 RPM.
I'm also currently sorting out a benchtop mill but was lucky enough to ask the right question of the right person (for a different reason) and ended up with an Emco FB-2 6 speed geared head & column, although the column is round it has a means for accurately maintaining alignment with gib-strip adjustment.
Here it is with the base I'm making and the cross slide from my mill-drill while I find a metric one for finer work.
Motor is 3 phase 4 pole with Siemens Micromaster VFD giving a speed range of 10 to 2500 RPM.
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- FB-2.jpg (71.42 KiB) Viewed 6576 times
The FB-2 was from a local machine tool supplier. In the UK they were at one time supplied as a bolt-on milling attachment for a variety of mid sized college lathes, it was surplus as all the lathes had sold & this was lying around in it's box, slightly scuffed up but unused! I got it for £250 
The motor is currently .13Kw as that's what I had lying around at midnight on the day I discovered the original was not going to run through an inverter, it has enough oomph for the time being, I'll replace it when I need the motor for it's original project - a Quorn T&C grinder I have planned.
Yes - that's the controller top left, it's a Siemens unit which gives me 240V 3Phase from 240V Single Phase, you can use the operator panel to run as well as program it, you can also wire external switches & a potentiometer for start, stop, emergency stop & speed control, ramp up & ramp down times etc are all programmable. My Myford Super 7, 6" power hacksaw and cheapo pillar drill also run 3Phase/VFD, I'm in the process of saving the money to convert my Rong Fu 400DVM to 3hp 3Phase, then I'll really have to make some stuff
I'm very interested in where you go with your mill as I'd eventually like to go CNC with the FB-2,
Keep up the good work,
Regards,
Nick
The motor is currently .13Kw as that's what I had lying around at midnight on the day I discovered the original was not going to run through an inverter, it has enough oomph for the time being, I'll replace it when I need the motor for it's original project - a Quorn T&C grinder I have planned.
Yes - that's the controller top left, it's a Siemens unit which gives me 240V 3Phase from 240V Single Phase, you can use the operator panel to run as well as program it, you can also wire external switches & a potentiometer for start, stop, emergency stop & speed control, ramp up & ramp down times etc are all programmable. My Myford Super 7, 6" power hacksaw and cheapo pillar drill also run 3Phase/VFD, I'm in the process of saving the money to convert my Rong Fu 400DVM to 3hp 3Phase, then I'll really have to make some stuff
I'm very interested in where you go with your mill as I'd eventually like to go CNC with the FB-2,
Keep up the good work,
Regards,
Nick
