The Home Machinist!

Charlie,
I prefer sizing with a bandsaw or roughing mill. I don't have one of those carbide insert face mills like you do, so YMMV. Probably Harold can chime in here and comment, but if you use a correctly ground hss bit with a chipbreaker, a much deeper cut with the flycutter is feasible. I use my flycutter with a brazed carbide tool at fairly high speed and a shallow cut, which gives a very nice finish.

Pipescs wrote:Thanks everyone for the input. Will be reworking the drawings for the pins at lunch today.

The vice came with the mill and it looks to be older than me. I am using a small vice I have had for a while for the binders and only have the large one bolted down to check to see how square it is. It would make a great anchor for the Queen Mary.

The vice and a DRO are on my Christmas list.

I am currently looking at the DRO by DRO PRO. Does anyone have one to comment on?

Grizzly Sells the same dro (EASSON) as DRO PROS with better pricing. DRO PROS does offer a wider selection of scale lengths but I think for most any common mill Grizz should have an appropriate package.

Charlie,
You might watch Enco, they sometimes have Kurt vises on sale and free shipping. That sucker is heavy!

Pipescs wrote:Received the endmills and counterbore bit from ENCO, also managed to get my hour in the shop last night.

Wife is starting to wonder about the number of ENCO packages coming in the door.

Finished cutting all six pedestal binders down to 5/8 x 3/4 and cut to length last night.

Now to drill and counter bore for the bolts

DSC_0138.jpg

Nice that every thing Enco sells is "just a couple bucks." LOL

kvom wrote:I take off the same amount on both sides to reduce stress warping.

A lesson not learned by some.

I congratulate you.

Harold

Fender wrote:if you use a correctly ground hss bit with a chipbreaker, a much deeper cut with the flycutter is feasible. I use my flycutter with a brazed carbide tool at fairly high speed and a shallow cut, which gives a very nice finish.

When machining ferrous or stainless, I'm inclined to do my stock removal with end mills. A 3/4" four flute does a great job, then it's dead easy to switch to a fly cutter for finish passes. Almost all my tooling has 3/4" shanks (for my BP, anyway). i generally leave only about three to five thou for the fly cutter, and rough the part in question completely before taking any finish cuts. That's good shop practice.

Much as I'm a fan of HSS, I, like you, use brazed carbide for my fly cutters, although there are exceptions. I use HSS for aluminum, and prefer the fly cutter even for roughing passes, assuming it lends itself to the project. Running the spindle @ 4,200 rpm, depth of cut can be .100" or greater, depending on the grind of the tool, with wide open feed rate. Can't do that with steel.

Heavy cuts in steel with a fly cutter on a BP aren't my idea of a good thing. It's much kinder to the spindle if you can always keep a tooth in the cut, which is especially true with carbide. Running a face or shell mill, I'd be inclined to run the cut on the edge instead of down the center of the cutter. That would be true of both climb and conventional milling. Much smoother introduction of the tool to the work, with little or no hammering.

Harold

Thanks for all the continued advice and input. Spent the night getting ready to paint the bathroom for the boss and a few hours in the shop Traming the mill head. I had done this prior with a short arm on the indicator but noticed that when using the face mill that it cut on the trailing edge when cutting right to left but not when cutting coming back. I repositioned the table both ways to make a normal cut.

I found I was out .001 and spent the evening getting it as close as I could to zero with what I have.

Tomorrow back to the frame brake fulcrum. Found a Bi Metal bandsaw blade at lunch today. Paid almost a third for it on what I paid for the saw.

Charlie,

This might be of interest to you.

http://www.edgetechnologyproducts.com/p ... ystem.html

mjahn wrote:Charlie,

This might be of interest to you.

If a guy has limited funds, I'd suggest that isn't a good investment. It is limited in many ways, and presents a false sense of greater precision, which simply isn't true. Only if both indicators are in perfect agreement in a vertical plane would the readings be meaningful, so you're still at the mercy of trusting one or the other of the indicators to know when you are at a *perfect* right angle.

There's nothing you can do with that device that can't be done with a single indicator mounted on an adjustable rod, with the added benefit of being able to select the arc that best serves the needs of the machine at hand.

I'm not keen on using anything between the indicator and table (like the 1-2-3 blocks). If you haven't dressed the table, that will become even more important. Any miniscule bump on the table surface will alter the attitude of the item placed on the table, providing a false reading. You are always far better served to swing the indicator with the tip in direct contact with the table.

I'm not too interested in the argument that the indicator has issues when traveling across the T slots. If you trail the tip, it does so with no problems, especially if you have only minimal contact of the tip with the table. A couple thou is more than adequate.

Harold

Morning Harold.

As you say I am on a limited budget around here and trying to channel as much cash toword the engine as possible.

Years ago the wife bought me a set of three stones that are something over twelve inches long. And as you can see my table is rough as a cob.

I dressed it for a while with the roughest stone until the blocks were a nice sliding fit over the oil on the table top.

Not sure were I heard about using the 123 or paralles for a surface to gauge to.

I will try it on the table only tonight after work

Off ot the grindstone for the days labor.

Charlie Pipes

I tram my head to a parallel in the vise, in case the vise ways are not exactly parallel to the table. When I need to mill using the table without the vise I recheck it. YMMV.

I have one of these, http://www.eztram.com/index.asp

I know it's a bit. But if you are going to move the head or if it takes a hard cut, you can get it out of tram with out knowing. This is a wonder!
d.