mla tee slot cross slide

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eric chilton

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hi i was wondering if anyone has machined the metal lathes accessories tee slot cross slide for the atlas 10 /12 lathe ? ive had the casting for about 2 years and thinking about machining the part...........i know i can do it i just want to hear other peoples views on the complexity of the job ............thanks eric.......
 
I've probably had mine for the same amount of time, and have just recently begun reviewing the drawings and pricing end mills. I tried to sub out one side of the thing, so I had one perfect flat side to work with, but nobody at work is interested. haha. So maybe you and I can both try and work through it together.
 
hi im trying to get Mr pete222 the YouTube shop teacher to do a series on it ..........i mentioned it to him and he didn't know it was available ..........there is a thread on practical machinist where a person named Paula does one for a south bend 9" lathe ...it very informative with pictures and a lot of write up about doing it.........Paula did it on a seg mini mill/drill and it turned out great .......the problem im having is i have an enco Bridgeport clone with a 2speed motor.......i have a phase o matic converter running it .........but the converter do-sent recognize the lower speed of the motor....and in paulas thread im thinking the speed it was machined at was like 270 where on mine i can only go as low as 660 ..........i would hate to goof this up ...lol.............i have not machine a lot of cast iron .........i have bought all the tooling to do it just been putting it off .........the day i start on it im gonna have to lock the door and turn the phone off so i don't have any interruptions...................Eric
 
jwmay look up the thread on practical machinist and in the mean time im gonna try and see if mr pete222 will do the series .......as free machining as cast iron is the only thing i see is getting under the crust layer ...........what i need to do is buy another one and send it to him ,,,,but right now funds wont allow ...............eric
 
So I'm thinking your intent is to fly cut it, or use a very large end mill for the facing cuts? I only have a mill drill, so I don't suppose our plans will be the same. You're going to be able to do it much faster I'm sure. I'm going to read this link above. I remember reading it before, but didn't know where it was at anymore. Thank you yendor!
 
jwmay i have an assortment of shars indexable r8 end mills from 1" to 3" im gonna use to mill mine with ......and i have the indexable dovetail cutter ......i just read thru the above link and im thinkin ..lol.....eric
 
The above linked isn't the one I've read before. It seems to be written by someone like us, instead of this Paula you mentioned. I've got an indexable dovetail cutter half made. It's been that way ever since I got stumped on how to hold it while cutting out the insert landing...At least a year and a half. Every time I run up against a wall that requires money to get over, the project stalls. According to the PM article, we need a 5/16 t slot cutter, and a 1.375 inch 60 degree cutter. I don't know if there's a difference with the Southbend MLA cross slide. I still have to figure out the professional way to sort out the 21/32" dimension with a 5/16 t slot cutter. Up til now, I thought I had to use a 3/8" t slot cutter. You've already got that stuff, so once again, you're ahead of the game, and I am behind the curve.
 
jwmay can you hold the cutter in a 5c collet block in the vice to cut the land? i believe the cutter has a certain degree of clearance in that area .......from what ive seen on the south bend dovetail is taller than the atlas .....im not sure but just going by what i have seen in pictures of them .....on my atlas 12" 3996 lathe the cross slide dovetail measuring with a scale is a little shy of 0.3125 just by eyeballing it ........ i joined machinist web yesterday haha i should have along time ago but i have so many websites and forums its hard to keep up with all the pass words and log in data lol........i read thru that thread and looked thru some others last nite that pertains to the mla a-11 cross slide..... the thread i was talking about is on practical machinist .......paula used an indexable apkt insert face mill to square the slide up with..............i know i can do this im just trying to figure out what cutters and speeds / feeds ...........i read on that other machinist web forum where they priced the job out and got prices of up to 1400.00 and the one guy the professor i think they call him said he would do one for 400.00 they estamated their time at about 24 hours to do it .......wow ..........im gonna have to do mine if it takes me a year ...lol........Eric...........
 
jwmay you can mill it on a mill/drill ..........the link yendor posted they used a fly cutter and a brased carbide bit to rough it out then finish cut it with hss.......... carbide to get under the crust /skin .......but carbide don't like an interrupted cut unless its a wmg type..............also they talked about the slide is got more material on one side if the dovetail area ..i havent had time to check mine yet ...and also they said that the tee slots need to be watched on spacing ..........................Eric
 
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