Homemade vertical mill drill

I would skip the XY table completely and go with linear rails. Make your own table!

I've been looking into this.

The setup on my vertical column is pretty sweet, there's lots of stuff online but how to engineer it is the question.

John
 
I pulled the trigger on a couple of linear rails and a ballscrew with mounting hardware. The thought is to make the X axis just like my column, have a heavy piece of steel machined flat with a protrusion in the center for locating the rails. Mount a carriage on top of that to hold the Y axis. I looked up the specs for this stuff, IKO LWL12-BCS and it looks like it should be strong enough to handle the forces I'll be putting on it and since they use it for making really precise machinery I should have a fair chance of exceeding the tolerances of the cheap X/Y tables;)

Cheers,

John

lwl12bcs.jpgballscres.jpeg
 
Here's what the vertical column looks like for reference.
 

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nice! I'll be watching with interest :) Might be worth thinking about how you could fit some steppers/ servos on the end of the ball screws - you're already halfway to a CNC mill.
 
nice! I'll be watching with interest :) Might be worth thinking about how you could fit some steppers/ servos on the end of the ball screws - you're already halfway to a CNC mill.

That's exactly what I was thinking, I already have a stepper motor and controller on my electronics workbench....
 
I’ve been reading and scratching my head on how construct a base and I came across epoxy/granite. Seems like an ideal solution for this project. I can weld up a skeleton for the base from steel, then “pour” my cast base around it. The column won’t actually be welded or bonded to the base, just slipped over a post and bolted down. I’m looking at a “T” shaped frame with the C channel facing up and my column mount welded to the bottom of the “T”. Then a 1/2” plate welded to the top of the C channel that’s drilled for the linear rails and stands proud of the epoxy/granite base. I’ll post pictures when I get the base mocked up but this approach should let me dial in the geometry, then add rigidity and mass once I’m happy with the basic structure.
 
So I was perusing the classifieds and I came across a Benchmaster horizontal mill. The price is affordable but who really wants a horizontal mill?

But it got me to thinking. The base of it would be nearly ideal for a vertical mill. Yeah, I know, they made them in both horiz. and vert. but holy baby Jesus the prices I saw on the very few of those I could find were about what I could get a full size mill for. And the heads alone were not that much cheaper.

So now I am very interested in how you will go about making a head for this?

I'm even looking at building up a mold form for both a base and a head. Of course I don't have the means to cast it in iron or anything else but the thinking is there. I've even played with the idea of making the vertical head out of thick wall tube. A couple of welds, couple of bearings and I will likely have enough in it to have bought a real milling machine.
 
So I was perusing the classifieds and I came across a Benchmaster horizontal mill. The price is affordable but who really wants a horizontal mill?

But it got me to thinking. The base of it would be nearly ideal for a vertical mill. Yeah, I know, they made them in both horiz. and vert. but holy baby Jesus the prices I saw on the very few of those I could find were about what I could get a full size mill for. And the heads alone were not that much cheaper.

So now I am very interested in how you will go about making a head for this?

I'm even looking at building up a mold form for both a base and a head. Of course I don't have the means to cast it in iron or anything else but the thinking is there. I've even played with the idea of making the vertical head out of thick wall tube. A couple of welds, couple of bearings and I will likely have enough in it to have bought a real milling machine.

Teknomotor

 

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So I was perusing the classifieds and I came across a Benchmaster horizontal mill. The price is affordable but who really wants a horizontal mill?

I'd go for a decent horizontal if you can get one cheap. I can already think of a few things I would use one for on this project....

John
 
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