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Another homemade milling machine

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shipto:
Due to the limitations of my milling fixture on my lathe I couldn't mill out the opening for the pinion so in a blatent misuse of handtools I cut it out with the jigsaw. I have made the shaft for it and put some nasty bits of metal to hold it in place. The reason for them being so long is that they will provide a shoulder for aligning the shaft I did think about cleaning them up but it would have been a vanity operation because once the spindle housing is on they will be hidden.
Ignore the other misuse of tools the tap wrench was handy to turn it and it runs up and down reasonably well, bit of a tight spot but its probably better than most drilling machines out there and given time it should wear in nicely which will do given that it will only be used like this for drilling. During milling operations it will be locked up and the knee will provide the adjustment up and down.

sparky961:
Misuse, or ingenuity?  I'll argue for the latter.  It always takes more skill to get things done with only the tools at hand.

It's an interesting project and thread.  I look forward to seeing it progress.

awemawson:
In the tradition of the early English tool makers, make the first one, then use it to help make the next - that as a progression, should be an improvement.

'tis has ever been thus  :clap:

shipto:
I have made a bit of progress. keep having to stop myself messing with the slide and reminding myself just how sloppy most drilling machines are but anyway I made a start on the fixtures for the head first off I worked out where the studs go and put them in along with the mounting plates for the rest of the head.
These two plates will form the basis of everything else relating to the head. I have drilled and tapped for the adjusters which I have circled in red and as you can see I have plenty of adjustment to get the head lined up left to right \ | / if everything goes anywhere near right I wont need anywhere near as much adjustment as I have available.
I also took a pic of the X,Y table which seeing as this was done before I started the body I should have pictured before but anyway it has the base from a cheapo XY table that has been discussed on these forums before but I did some work on it and changed the screw to a 1mm pitch and it seems pretty good now. The other axis is bits from the very first lathe I had a clarke 300?? I will go into that in a bit more detail later in the thread.

shipto:
got the bit together for the head drilled holes in them and used a bit of 12mm threaded bar to hold everything in place while I welded it all up. Just need to clean it all up tomorrow and maybe get the riffler on the corners because I forgot to leave room for a weld when I drilled the mounting holes.

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