I got this old shaping head years ago. It is for another milling machine, but it looks similar enough to mine I thought it would be easy to adapt. It was quite a bit of work though. This is how the machine business end looks like(iso40 spindle) :
And the head looks like this
So completely different. For an example how it should look like here is a vertical milling head for this machine. (self made arbor, it was missing when I bought it).
So I decided to make an adapter plate/ring. It appears the shaping head has a removable swivel base. The mounting system for attachments on the mill can be rotated so this isn't necessary.
I started by finding a suitable plate. The only one large enough was 20mm(3/4in) thick. This is a bit thin, but it should be fine hopefully.
I first drilled a centre hole in hope of holding the plate with a bolt and to use the hole to locate everything else.
Then there came my first try to oxy-acetylene cut
The plate is too thick for my plasma cutter so I had to try oxy-acetylene. I attempted a circle and it turned out OK (for a first try)
I first spent a bit with a 12in angle grinder getting all the dross out and making it fit my lathe. I settled on this precarious setup intending on turning the OD, then trepanning the central hole. There were 2 nuts on the screw, also the tailstock pushing against it(not visible below).
Turning the Od worked fine, but as could be expected trepanning chattered horribly and the plate started coming loose. So I had to come up with some other work holding ideas (i would love to have a back mounting plate for my lathe). As I have a mag drill I came up with this:
3 holes using my biggest annular cutter managed to fit my chuck jaws with no room to spare at all. I'll take lucky over good any day of the week
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get it ideally centered so as my OD was already turned I ended up with half a mm (20 thou) runout. That's not great, but acceptable. The mill mounting slot has enough clearance to live with it. If I was doing it again I would start with this mounting idea and turn the OD true.
Then I could cut the centre hole, but I gave up on trepanning for now and I went for normal drilling and boring:
This was straightforward, I then drilled a bunch of mounting holes, I turned the shaping head locating feature on one side and I made a protruding ring to use as a locating feature on the other side. I attached it with 3 screws.
However, the mill attachment nuts were covered by the shaping head casting so I had to come up with a way to put them below the mating surface. So I had to cut a relief for each nut allowing a wrench to be used to tighten/loosen.
In this setup on the mill
It looks a big precarious, but it worked perfectly fine with no chatter.
Then I had to make some hardware by cutting off heads from few M16 bolts and cutting slots into them for a flathead screwdriver. Also I made some T bolts by welding on m12 hex heads. I used permanent loctite on the shaping head studs and this is the result:
This is the shaping head mating side
The mill side(those T bolt heads extend 20mm up when pulled):
Next step will be making a driving shaft/arbor. I'm pretty happy how the adapter plate came out.
And the head looks like this
So completely different. For an example how it should look like here is a vertical milling head for this machine. (self made arbor, it was missing when I bought it).
So I decided to make an adapter plate/ring. It appears the shaping head has a removable swivel base. The mounting system for attachments on the mill can be rotated so this isn't necessary.
I started by finding a suitable plate. The only one large enough was 20mm(3/4in) thick. This is a bit thin, but it should be fine hopefully.
I first drilled a centre hole in hope of holding the plate with a bolt and to use the hole to locate everything else.
Then there came my first try to oxy-acetylene cut
The plate is too thick for my plasma cutter so I had to try oxy-acetylene. I attempted a circle and it turned out OK (for a first try) I first spent a bit with a 12in angle grinder getting all the dross out and making it fit my lathe. I settled on this precarious setup intending on turning the OD, then trepanning the central hole. There were 2 nuts on the screw, also the tailstock pushing against it(not visible below).
Turning the Od worked fine, but as could be expected trepanning chattered horribly and the plate started coming loose. So I had to come up with some other work holding ideas (i would love to have a back mounting plate for my lathe). As I have a mag drill I came up with this:
3 holes using my biggest annular cutter managed to fit my chuck jaws with no room to spare at all. I'll take lucky over good any day of the week
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get it ideally centered so as my OD was already turned I ended up with half a mm (20 thou) runout. That's not great, but acceptable. The mill mounting slot has enough clearance to live with it. If I was doing it again I would start with this mounting idea and turn the OD true.
Then I could cut the centre hole, but I gave up on trepanning for now and I went for normal drilling and boring:
This was straightforward, I then drilled a bunch of mounting holes, I turned the shaping head locating feature on one side and I made a protruding ring to use as a locating feature on the other side. I attached it with 3 screws.
However, the mill attachment nuts were covered by the shaping head casting so I had to come up with a way to put them below the mating surface. So I had to cut a relief for each nut allowing a wrench to be used to tighten/loosen.
In this setup on the mill
It looks a big precarious, but it worked perfectly fine with no chatter.
Then I had to make some hardware by cutting off heads from few M16 bolts and cutting slots into them for a flathead screwdriver. Also I made some T bolts by welding on m12 hex heads. I used permanent loctite on the shaping head studs and this is the result:
This is the shaping head mating side
The mill side(those T bolt heads extend 20mm up when pulled):
Next step will be making a driving shaft/arbor. I'm pretty happy how the adapter plate came out.
