Hi All
I'm getting pretty frustrated. When I had my old 100 pound LMS mill I could bang out a bunch of my brass guitar bridges. I wanted my guitar parts to be steel so I took the plunge and upgraded my mill to my 1000 pound Grizzly G0678 mill and my 36 pound lathe to my 1100 pound M1112 lathe. I have yet to make a complete set of guitar parts for one guitar. Regarding my steel bridges, I'm always breaking center drills in them. It drives me nuts. I go dog slow so as not to force the bit in, and I'm always brushing away the chips so as not to allow them to interfere with the drills cutting. My RPM's are around 350 but I've tried other speeds. I'm drilling into mild steel. My center drills come from Harbor Freight. Are they inferior? As you all know, once you break anything HSS into mild steel then the piece usually becomes trash. I have 62 holes I need to drill in my bridge. 48 of them end up getting tapped with a #6-40. I bought a Tapmatic for that that works awesome, but getting to the tapping point is the issue now. Any advice is appreciated.
I'm getting pretty frustrated. When I had my old 100 pound LMS mill I could bang out a bunch of my brass guitar bridges. I wanted my guitar parts to be steel so I took the plunge and upgraded my mill to my 1000 pound Grizzly G0678 mill and my 36 pound lathe to my 1100 pound M1112 lathe. I have yet to make a complete set of guitar parts for one guitar. Regarding my steel bridges, I'm always breaking center drills in them. It drives me nuts. I go dog slow so as not to force the bit in, and I'm always brushing away the chips so as not to allow them to interfere with the drills cutting. My RPM's are around 350 but I've tried other speeds. I'm drilling into mild steel. My center drills come from Harbor Freight. Are they inferior? As you all know, once you break anything HSS into mild steel then the piece usually becomes trash. I have 62 holes I need to drill in my bridge. 48 of them end up getting tapped with a #6-40. I bought a Tapmatic for that that works awesome, but getting to the tapping point is the issue now. Any advice is appreciated.
