Homemade vertical mill drill

I hope it works for what you want. I do have a suggestion before you replace the lead screw. For that Burke table I am working on I ordered a new nut from McMaster Carr and it fit the old screw nice and tight. So maybe try a new nut first.

That's a good thought. I had a friend over last night who used to own a machine shop and he couldn't figure out what pitch the ones I have are. I can get 3' ea. left & right handed standard 1/2' 10 for ~$20 so I might as well order them. Turning and finishing the ends should be easy on my lathe.

Thanks,

John
 
That's a good thought. I had a friend over last night who used to own a machine shop and he couldn't figure out what pitch the ones I have are. I can get 3' ea. left & right handed standard 1/2' 10 for ~$20 so I might as well order them. Turning and finishing the ends should be easy on my lathe.

Thanks,

John
Wouldn't they be metric?
 
Some progress today, got the X/Y table cleaned out and put back together and mounted on my modified Central Machinery drill press.

base1.jpeg

Yes, a drill press is not a mill. But I did put angular contact bearings and drilled and tapped the spindle to hold the ER32 collet holder so I figure I should make some chips.

base2.jpeg

It's not real pretty but this is what I was after.

base3.jpeg

This piece gets welded to the frame for the base and slips inside the column. It'll get bolted in and have lateral screws pushing against it from the column to set alignment.

zaxis.jpeg

Once I mount the spindle the Z axis should be pretty much done.



Cheers,

John
 
It's not real pretty but this is what I was after.

Certainly nothing a few minutes with a file won't clean up - not bad.

Did you measure the runout of the drill press spindle before and after? I would have been in too much of a rush myself, but it would be reassuring afterwards to know how well those bearings did their job.
 
Certainly nothing a few minutes with a file won't clean up - not bad.

Did you measure the runout of the drill press spindle before and after? I would have been in too much of a rush myself, but it would be reassuring afterwards to know how well those bearings did their job.

I didn’t measure runout on the drill press but it’s not good. The point of the bearing is to take a side load, it really didn’t change operation of the machine.
 
I'm worried about the rigidity of the column and flexing. It will be interesting to see. Nice work so far.
Robert
 
I'm worried about the rigidity of the column and flexing. It will be interesting to see. Nice work so far.
Robert

Yes, that is a concern. The column itself is pretty stout steel and the linear slide system is pretty strong but obviously it was built as an optical comparitor, not a mill. The spindle I'm using is only .7 hp so I have no illusions of making big cuts in steel with this thing. I'm gonna get it up as a manual machine and see how it performs and if it's good enough I'll switch it over to CNC where I can program it to be patient.

I am looking for a bigger machine eventually but I really don't have the space right now. When I started looking at benchtop mill/drills it seems pretty easy to spend too much on something with too little capability. If this unit gets me through the projects I have this summer (motorcycle and travel trailer) I'll be happy. If not then I'll re-purpose the parts into something else.

Cheers,

John
 
The column itself is pretty stout steel and the linear slide system is pretty strong but obviously it was built as an optical comparitor, not a mill.

The column is similar to the Taig (though possibly thicker walls) mill, which I found to have a lot of flex. I've considered pouring cement into the column (with some threaded rod going through the bench and acting as rebar), but have not yet done so.

For the linear slide, definitely work up some sort of locking mechanism, like a quill lock, so when you're milling you don't pull the spindle down towards the work. The Taig requires you to tighten the gibs to lock the quill, which is really not that ideal. One more thing to fix on those benchtop machines I rarely use anymore.

Looking good, can't wait to see how the base filler (epoxy?) turns out.
 
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