90 degree gearhead adapter to allow horizontal milling using a conventional vertical milling machine?

slow-poke

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This might be a wacky idea, but it would not be my first. I have an older LC-30 mill that I have converted to CNC operation. Works great now from my perspective.

Occasionally I would like to mill a slot etc. in the side of an enclosure that is too large to fit on end in my mill (picture a rectangular box say 20" x 20" x 2" and I need the opening on the 2" side.

Google search shows some horizontal milling attachments, that effectively convert a vertical mill to a horizontal mill. Most of these seem to be two ended (with support) I would need an open ended one. For occasional use on aluminum and light gauge steel. Do these work, or are they not rigid enough?

Assuming they are okay for light use, getting one that would fit my LC-30 might be tricky. Would love to hear from some one that has tried one, or used a gearhead adapter to make one.
 
They work fine and you could work without the support, but watch the length of the arbor your using and keep your depth of cut to what the tool will let you cut.
 
I have one and it can be used with or without the support. They do take a bit of set up time though which keeps one from
using it a lot.
 
The quill diameter on my machine is 3.78". What is the approximate diameter of the quill on the Bridgeport machines? (I found one reference that indicated 3.375", I'm not sure if that is standard for Bridgeport).

I suppose I could make an adapter, however it would be easier to start with an adapter with the same or larger quill diameter.

The other tricky part might be converting the MT3 taper spindle to the adapter.
 
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I think that if you can find an attachment that will fit your mill, that would be the way to go. Modifying an attachment for
a Bridgeport, although possible, would not be a practical thing to do.
 
I have a pretty complete set up for horizontal milling on a Bridgeport clone. It works very well and I have about 40 cutters for it. The problem is that I seldom use it because I can usually do a work around faster than I can set up the horizontal equipment.

Randy
 
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