New mill/drill just arrived, what do I need FIRST . . . then second . . . then third?

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chakotay

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Woo-hoo! My Harbor Freight mill/drill just arrived! It came much quicker than I expected; delivery time was a little under a week. FedEx just left it at the front door--glad no one stole it? It’s of course covered with goo/cosmoline. I look forward to taking it apart, cleaning it, and reassembling it. It’s really the best way to get to know a machine.


Being a newbie, my question is what are the list of priorities to get me running basic milling operations on this machine out of the box? I have to buy tooling as I get disposable cash, so I can’t get everything at once unfortunately. I’m thinking a vice, hold-down clamps, and an end mill holder? Perhaps a test indicator to square everything up? Let me know if there’s something even more basic I’m missing.


Also, what should I be using for lubrication once I’ve cleaned it up?


Thanks! ---j
 
Do you have any thing in mind you want to make? Or do you just want to make chips? If chips you really jut need a vise endmill and collet/chuck.

But you need an indicator to set up the mill and vice before you do anything.
 
Oh, I have a whole series of vague projects in mind! The most current is repairing/making my own knife scales and bolsters. This would involve working with mild steel, brass, wood, and acrylic. I'm hoping to use this mill to get them as close to finished shape as possible before finishing up filing and polishing by hand. This would involve shaving the material down thinner (planing it), slotting channels, boring holes, and grinding off pin heads precisely (as not to damage anything else.) So small-scale, precision projects.
 
a vise, an end mill and a holder is the bare minimum to make chips (or substitute a set of hold down clamps for the vise) and a DTI for tramming the mill is important for when you want to make something for real and not just practice making chips. Keep an eye out on CL and eBay for machinist tool lots, estate sales and so on. You may be able to pick up a variety of tooling for not much money.
 
Most of that can be done with end mills. If I was looking to buy just the bare min to get started I would need a decent vice, a set of drill bits, some end mills in the size I would need for my project, collets for each size end mill I was using, a decent indicator, a magnetic base, digital calipers, 0-1,0-2,0-3 mics, a clamp set , edge finder, paralells and some steel.

You can use a chuck for endmills but it aint exactly the most nuts on way to do things. But before I started on a project, I would try playing with some cuts. Square some blocks, step a block, locate some edges, locate and drill some holes. Unless you have been around machines before that is.

Theres so many tools that are nice to have. So many that have nothing to do with making the cuts really. I would buy the min then buy as I needed. Or as I wanted to practice. If you want to try to mill a angle then buy some angle blocks or sine bar and gages. You want to try to mae a clean bore buy some reams etcetc
 
Thanks guys! It seems I was heading down the right track (that makes me feel like less of an idiot). Now a couple of questions that DO make me feel like one:
1. How does the vice attach to the table? Do I need a set of clamps to do that?
2. End mills: Short of throwing one in the drill chuck (which I tried with poor results on my drill press,) I've gathered that there are two systems for holding the bit; end mill holders and collets. It seems like collets are the way to go. How do these attach to the spindle? Is there a collet holder? When shopping on the internet, am I looking specifically for "R8" collets?

Sorry for the elementary school questions. One of my concerns is buying something online, waiting for it to be delivered, only to find out I need something ELSE to make it work. ---j
 
Which mill did you get?

You should look up some youtube video's, there tons of info out there for someone starting out.


chakotay said:
Thanks guys! It seems I was heading down the right track (that makes me feel like less of an idiot). Now a couple of questions that DO make me feel like one:
1. How does the vice attach to the table? Do I need a set of clamps to do that?
2. End mills: Short of throwing one in the drill chuck (which I tried with poor results on my drill press,) I've gathered that there are two systems for holding the bit; end mill holders and collets. It seems like collets are the way to go. How do these attach to the spindle? Is there a collet holder? When shopping on the internet, am I looking specifically for "R8" collets?

Sorry for the elementary school questions. One of my concerns is buying something online, waiting for it to be delivered, only to find out I need something ELSE to make it work. ---j
Click to expand...
 
You would be an idiot if you did not ask questions you know you need the answer for.

Heres a r-8 end mill holder http://www.grizzly.com/products/G5614

heres a r8 collet http://www.grizzly.com/products/G1643

I never used the end mill holder. But I assume it mounts as a collet would. It will slide in the spindle and the draw bar threads into it and draws it tight. I dont know which would be better, but I like collets just fine so far. Vise will have 2 slots on the side that bolts to the bed via the T slots. Slide the T nut in, thread in the stud then nut.
 
End mill holders are typically used in environments where heavier cuts/higher feed rates might cause an end mill in a collet to slip or turn. For smaller machines like yours a collet will do just fine. As long as you snug it up good. :)

Bill
 
wrmiller19 said:
End mill holders are typically used in environments where heavier cuts/higher feed rates might cause an end mill in a collet to slip or turn. For smaller machines like yours a collet will do just fine. As long as you snug it up good. :)

Bill
Click to expand...

How snug is good? I'm serious. I'm building a drawbar mechanism to allow me to draw up collets in my Avey drill press and it would help to know how much force is needed. I'm using MT3 but I can use information on other tapers: it's just trigonometry.
 
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