| Gallery, Projects and General > How do I?? |
| Chinese milling adapters for a mini lathe |
| (1/3) > >> |
| bigmini:
When I purchased my lathe, I also bought one of those milling adapters like this one: Whether or not I use it with the plate I made to allow it to work full width, the thing flexes and chatters something awful :doh:. I use an ER25 collet system to hold the slot drills, and despite running very low speeds, making sure the teeth were cutting and not rubbing, tightening up gibs on the cross slide and locking down all the locks, I was able to obtain a more accurate finish by chucking the work in the 4 jaw and facing it instead. In fact, there is visible movement back and forth of the top of the adaptor as the end mill cuts. :( The problem is less pronounced when cutting aluminium rather than steel, but it doesn't go away. Is this adapter a waste of space fit only for the bin, or is there more I can do to stiffen it up? |
| andyf:
I don't like mine much either, Bigmini - see http://andysmachines.weebly.com/the-vertical-milling-slide---criticisms.html . But as you will see from lower down that page, another Andy gets along OK with his, and mine is often borrowed by a mate who uses it on his Myford, though he says he only takes very shallow cuts. I think the wobble is probably due to the distance between the work and the lathebed, which boils down to overhang even though some of that is verical rather than horizontal, coupled with slop in the slides (locking your carriage down might help) and the fact that the milling slide is only held down by two or three closely spaced 6 or 8mm bolts. Andy |
| bigmini:
Your lathe looks like a smaller version of mine Andy. Mine is a Titan TL210(8x16), which is basically a stretched mini lathe, but with some extra goodies like a threading dial and proper headstock bearings. I've actually made the adapter plate to a similar design to the Little Machine Shop one. Mine is much thicker (around 15mm) to make it as rigid as possible. Yes, I had to relieve it underneath to clear the oil ports and cross slide nut. I also drilled the holes in it to move the VMS back closer to the cross slide, sacrificing the ability to rotate for supposedly better rigidity. I plan to use the same plate to mount other stuff on the cross slide as well, so eventually it will be full of holes. :D I was reluctant to drill and tap the cross slide itself because it is actually quite thin. I like the idea of cutting off the sides of that stupid vise. Then I could drill and tap what's left to take the vise or a backing plate to hold clamps. So far, I get better results holding things in the toolpost if they'll fit. |
| maybecnc:
I don't have that milling attachment. I do milling with the compound vertically. Instead of a cast iron angle adapter I use a solid 50x50x90mm steel block to hold the compound. Have made a small face plate, drilled and tapped, that is bolted to compound. It does the job but I hope not for much longer. A mill is on my purchase list. Lathe cross slides aren't usually truly square to the lathe bed and that may be a cause for some of your problems. Don't mill feeding the cross slide from front to back. Mill always feeding it from back to front. |
| andyf:
Hi bigmini, There does seem to be a family resemblance, but I think yours may originate from a different Chinese factory. Mine came from an outfit calling itself Weiss Machinery (doubtless in an attempt to give it an air of German respectability) and their "8x16" has their hallmark curved front to the headstock and gear cover. I think some basic designs for various People's Lathes must have been prescribed in the past, so we now see variants of those designs from Chinese manufacturers. For example, Ketan at Arc Euro Trade says that the ubiquitous "7x12 mini-lathes" by Sieg and Real Bull are all adaptations of a old Russian or East German machine. I appreciate you don't want to drill holes all over your cross-slide, but if your lathe has the same awkward method of swivelling the topslide as mine originally did, the forces involved in milling must exert some considerable leverage on the clamp disc within the cross-slide. Thus, it might be worth drilling/tapping a single M8 hole in the rear LH corner of the cross-slide so the back of your adapter plate can be secured to counteract both the twisting force and any tendency for the plate to flex upwards. Andy |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |