I've found myself using the boring bar set up on my mini mill MUCH more frequently than I ever thought I would when I bought it. Up until now though, I've been using it just to create holes larger than I could drill with the mill, as I've been without a drill press for a while, and none of them required any real precision... 0.050" was plenty close enough for what I was doing.
My problem hasn't been so much one of holding a set diameter, but rather achieving a smooth enough feed to get a decent surface finish. Either I got an interrupted feed with the fine dial, or got a finish that looked like I ground it out with a coarse wheel on an angle grinder, using the coarse feed because it was difficult to feed it slowly enough while still applying proper pressure on the bit. Of course, this also has a tendency to chew up the edge on the cutter as well.
Now I find myself with a project that will require a slight press fit of parts, so I need to come up with a better way of handling boring these holes. A z-axis power feed would be ideal here, and I've seen a few CNC kits that include Z axis control. But I don't want to go full blown CNC at this point, as I'd want to maintain the ability to manually machine parts. A large chunk of my use is machining existing parts, as opposed to making new parts from blank stock. All the CNC Z axis set ups I've been seeing are just computer controlled, period, and don't provide provisions for manual control.
Barring that, would machining up a larger dial/fine feed handle, similar to the X/Y feed handles, be an appropriate solution here?
My problem hasn't been so much one of holding a set diameter, but rather achieving a smooth enough feed to get a decent surface finish. Either I got an interrupted feed with the fine dial, or got a finish that looked like I ground it out with a coarse wheel on an angle grinder, using the coarse feed because it was difficult to feed it slowly enough while still applying proper pressure on the bit. Of course, this also has a tendency to chew up the edge on the cutter as well.
Now I find myself with a project that will require a slight press fit of parts, so I need to come up with a better way of handling boring these holes. A z-axis power feed would be ideal here, and I've seen a few CNC kits that include Z axis control. But I don't want to go full blown CNC at this point, as I'd want to maintain the ability to manually machine parts. A large chunk of my use is machining existing parts, as opposed to making new parts from blank stock. All the CNC Z axis set ups I've been seeing are just computer controlled, period, and don't provide provisions for manual control.
Barring that, would machining up a larger dial/fine feed handle, similar to the X/Y feed handles, be an appropriate solution here?
