New Mill/Drill

My wife and I have separate finances....totally separate! She says I can get whatever I want as long as I can pay for it, it’s not immoral or illegal. Without a General over the money, I find myself very careful about my decisions especially now that I am retired. There isn’t a good way (I am not getting a job, I didn’t quit an extremely well paying job to get a lower paying job!) to replace the mother lode.
 
A followup. I got the stand built for my HF round column mill drill. I also incorporated an extension in one corner of the table with a piece of ground drillrod for holding index when the head is raised. Using a close fitting split sleeve in my mill vice with drillrod in a collet as a guide I can raise the head all the way and when I lower it back down it goes right back into the sleeve. One problem I didn't figure on is that when I lock the column with the two large hex bolts the head moves anywhere from .oo5" to .010' . I think I may be able to make that consistent if I used a torque wrench on the locking bolts but couldn't find mine. One of my sons must have "auto-inherited" it. I'll have to get another one. It also occurred to me that while I have a depth stop on the quill I don't have one for the head so I stuck a split sleeve on the indexing rod that I can clamp down at any depth setting. Here's some pics
.DSC_0065.JPGDSC_0067.JPGDSC_0069.JPGDSC_0074.JPGDSC_0075.JPG
 
Last edited:
Nice work on the table. I've been into electronics since the 60's but have never seen double capacition motors before. Is that a foreign language version of capacitors? Or some new technology?

Roy
 
royesses said:
Nice work on the table. I've been into electronics since the 60's but have never seen double capacition motors before. Is that a foreign language version of capacitors? Or some new technology?

Roy
Click to expand...
Beats me about the double capacition but it does seem to have a high wattage of smoothocitation!
 
Smoothocitation , LOL. Actually when I purchased my mini mill I was looking for the mill you have. There were none within 200 miles of my location. Hopefully it is R8. Me thinks you'll be quite happy with it. Congrats on the purchase. Now the expensive portion of the journey starts, tooling up. It is a lot of fun trying to get the tooling you want/need at the best price point/quality. I've spent 4 times the cost of my mini lathe and mill on tooling. No wife to please so I can bankrupt myself at will.

Roy
 
Last edited:
I also look forward to more on your mill.
I passed up an Enco this last winter. I am thinking I may have messed up as it came with some tooling. Oh well water under the bridge so to speak.
I had plans on getting a PM mill, work has been a mess with all the flooding, that in turn messed up plans for projects and getting them done.
I have a few CZ rifles I will cut loose if need be to fund mine next year.
Jeff
 
Followup on HF Mill drill. I started using the 3 inch face mill and was getting a fair finish. The next time I used it the cut was like a hatchet. I discovered the face mill has what appears to be regular lathe tools with brazed on carbide cutters instead of inserts AND they were loose. I tightened them up and the finish was still bad. Turns out the cap screw holding the shell to the arbor was loose. I tightened that up and when I mounted the unit in the spindle the draw bar kept turning like it was stripped. I discovered the drawbar wasn't one piece. The shaft was one piece and the hex on th end was another piece pressed on and pinned. The pin BROKE! I welded the hex head to the shaft and (finally) got a good finish again. I guess when you pay $1.20 a pound for a new milling machine you're bound to find a few floaters in your coffee!
 
I recently had the same problem with the draw bar for a RF Clone Mill.
I plan to make a new One Piece bar when time permits
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top