Hello All,
So I have read somewhere or heard on a video that the learning curve for horizontal mills is steep. It feels like I just started up a Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Got the old VN running and have been playing around with vertical milling. Still a Nuub but getting there.
I had some time this week so decided to venture into the horizontal mode. Keep in mind, prior to owning this mill I have never had any milling experience of any kind. Watched lots of YouTube and read a fair amount but no real experience. I purchased some used cutters on EBay and most look very dull but a few look to be useable and 2 look like they are new or newly sharpened.
First project, taking about 100 thou off of the bottom of my quick change tool post tool holders. My Logan/MW 10 inch lathe is just a bit too low for the AXA tool post I purchased. It is cheap chinesimum but made of steel and seems to work quite smoothly and holds my cutters well, they are just too tall. Should be an easy project right? And one of my two good cutters is a 3 inch by 2.5inch spiral cutter that will take the one inch cut in one pass.
I took my time setting up the machine, everything oiled, everything tight, calculated the speed of the cutter and using 100 sfm and the 2.5 inch cutter. Calculated a chip load of 1 thou per tooth to approximate feed rate. Took a first cut using brushed on oil of .005 and hand cranked the first pass.
The first pass seemed to go ok, machine did not seem to be struggling, chips were being made the finish looked ok. Second pass, same depth of cut .005 machine feed and the cut was slower than my hand cranking by a bit but the machine seemed to struggle a bit more and the chips were not as evident. Third pass, same depth of cut, same machine feed but something is wrong here, machine really making some noise and not producing any chips to speak of. Time to stop.
I pull everything out of the machine look at my cutter and the teeth are hammered where the part was sitting. Knock knock pudding head, I didn’t check the hardness of the part. I grabbed the part, put it in the vice and grabbed the first file I could get my hands on. It wasn’t butter but it did cut. Grabbed a more course file and that file skated, could not get it to grab. Then I took a piece of hot rolled scrap and filed on that, much easier than the part so the part is harder or maybe case hardened. Still the finer files did cut the edges of the part. FIRST LESSON, CHECK FOR HARDNESS!
I never was all that fast at leaning so I’m thinking, it can’t be that hard, I try once more with a narrower cutter. I put in a less than pristine 3/8 inch plain milling cutter and backed off on everything, speed, feed, and depth of cut. This time the machine really objected almost made a hammering sound on the second pass and quickly shut down machine to find that I had chipped a tooth and each time that came around, bam, bam, bam and machine almost jumped YIKES it weighs 1600 lbs. SECOND LESSON, LEARN THE FIRST LESSON.
Time to lick my wounds and quit horizontal milling for now. How to mill this without carbide? I put the machine back in vertical mode and then remembered I have a few carbide burr tools. Set it up in in the mill, took very small depth of cut and it cut like butter. It takes 20 passes to take off that 100 thou but it is working.
Finally to my question. How should this mill sound when doing horizontal milling? I read that the ,rrr,,rrr,,rrr sound is typical when milling The You Tubes I have watched are almost all silent or sound-over types so I can’t hear the machine itself. And are the speeds and feeds calculated the same for a horizontal mill? Last question, does anyone know any good tool grinders near Minnesota or where I can ship the cutter I wrecked? The second one is in the garbage.
Thanks for your thoughts. This thread may be better suited to the Beginners Forum but since you folks know VN machines I thought I would ask you first.
John Minnesota
So I have read somewhere or heard on a video that the learning curve for horizontal mills is steep. It feels like I just started up a Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Got the old VN running and have been playing around with vertical milling. Still a Nuub but getting there.
I had some time this week so decided to venture into the horizontal mode. Keep in mind, prior to owning this mill I have never had any milling experience of any kind. Watched lots of YouTube and read a fair amount but no real experience. I purchased some used cutters on EBay and most look very dull but a few look to be useable and 2 look like they are new or newly sharpened.
First project, taking about 100 thou off of the bottom of my quick change tool post tool holders. My Logan/MW 10 inch lathe is just a bit too low for the AXA tool post I purchased. It is cheap chinesimum but made of steel and seems to work quite smoothly and holds my cutters well, they are just too tall. Should be an easy project right? And one of my two good cutters is a 3 inch by 2.5inch spiral cutter that will take the one inch cut in one pass.
I took my time setting up the machine, everything oiled, everything tight, calculated the speed of the cutter and using 100 sfm and the 2.5 inch cutter. Calculated a chip load of 1 thou per tooth to approximate feed rate. Took a first cut using brushed on oil of .005 and hand cranked the first pass.
The first pass seemed to go ok, machine did not seem to be struggling, chips were being made the finish looked ok. Second pass, same depth of cut .005 machine feed and the cut was slower than my hand cranking by a bit but the machine seemed to struggle a bit more and the chips were not as evident. Third pass, same depth of cut, same machine feed but something is wrong here, machine really making some noise and not producing any chips to speak of. Time to stop.
I pull everything out of the machine look at my cutter and the teeth are hammered where the part was sitting. Knock knock pudding head, I didn’t check the hardness of the part. I grabbed the part, put it in the vice and grabbed the first file I could get my hands on. It wasn’t butter but it did cut. Grabbed a more course file and that file skated, could not get it to grab. Then I took a piece of hot rolled scrap and filed on that, much easier than the part so the part is harder or maybe case hardened. Still the finer files did cut the edges of the part. FIRST LESSON, CHECK FOR HARDNESS!
I never was all that fast at leaning so I’m thinking, it can’t be that hard, I try once more with a narrower cutter. I put in a less than pristine 3/8 inch plain milling cutter and backed off on everything, speed, feed, and depth of cut. This time the machine really objected almost made a hammering sound on the second pass and quickly shut down machine to find that I had chipped a tooth and each time that came around, bam, bam, bam and machine almost jumped YIKES it weighs 1600 lbs. SECOND LESSON, LEARN THE FIRST LESSON.
Time to lick my wounds and quit horizontal milling for now. How to mill this without carbide? I put the machine back in vertical mode and then remembered I have a few carbide burr tools. Set it up in in the mill, took very small depth of cut and it cut like butter. It takes 20 passes to take off that 100 thou but it is working.
Finally to my question. How should this mill sound when doing horizontal milling? I read that the ,rrr,,rrr,,rrr sound is typical when milling The You Tubes I have watched are almost all silent or sound-over types so I can’t hear the machine itself. And are the speeds and feeds calculated the same for a horizontal mill? Last question, does anyone know any good tool grinders near Minnesota or where I can ship the cutter I wrecked? The second one is in the garbage.
Thanks for your thoughts. This thread may be better suited to the Beginners Forum but since you folks know VN machines I thought I would ask you first.
John Minnesota
