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Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
Count me as a mentor who has been pleased with a cold saw.
We've been cutting (yes it is slow) aluminum for a couple of seasons without injury. We did break a blade once when the stock was not long enough to clamp properly. Because of the low rpm the incident was alarming and instructive but not particularly dangerous. I will accept slow cuts, and higher upfront cost, to avoid the hazard (see other CD posts for scary stories of flying metal) of having anyone, especially students, cut metal with a high-speed chop saw. Not to mention the screeching. A pneumatic rivet gun set up is relatively cheap and as posted earlier a great next tool. And quite safe. |
Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
Can anyone who's used an x-y milling vise on a drill press answer my question about edge-finding?
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A drill press really isn't as accurate as a mill even if you're just drilling holes and not taking any passes with an endmill. It's just not made to be as accurate. |
Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
Thanks for the replies.
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I suppose one could use a center drill; in this case, I'd still edge it up by eye. Don't expect to hold 0.001" tolerances, and I can judge 0.005 by eye if I'm careful. Quote:
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Think of cutting a slot 2" long in 1/8" aluminum tubing: Drill holes at the endpoints, cut out the slot, then finish it with a mill in a drill press. Or other light milling. Hogging out metal from a chunk is unlikely to work well, simply because the drill press table will move (I don't care how tight you clamp it). Spindle bearings are angular roller bearings. Their failure mode is quite predictable and safe: They get noisy. That's why they are used for car wheel axles: Even in a very bad case, the wheel stays on. Wobbles maybe, but stays on (at least until the spindle breaks off). |
Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
When you can get a small manual Sherline or Taig for less than the cost of some industrial drill press it makes no sense to mill with a drill press. These little machines may be made from aluminum but they will cut aluminum all be it slowly. Plus you can basically carry them around all by yourself and they only need a simple conventional wall output for power.
I have a MaxNC10 CNC mill I am cleaning up. Complete with closed loop stepper control. This thing even has an NC tapping attachment (a stepper motor and tap chuck next to the head that it can deploy via aux ports on the control). Even with my modifications I can carry the MaxNC10, the extra attachments and 4th axis around all by myself. I am thinking of building a case so that I can ship it more easily and use mist coolant. I bought it used and fixed it up when they damaged all the leads during the shipping. |
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Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
Monochron,
One place to find machine tools is manufacturing associations. One I try to point out is the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA). Greensboro has a chapter. Piedmont Chapter PO Box 13355 Greensboro, NC 27415 Phone 336-312-9197 Fax 336-868-7770 http://www.ntma.org Edge finders are great for quickly picking up edges but they will only be as accurate in relationship to the run out of the edge finder body. If the body is running out .010 total indicator reading (TIR) do not plan on anything better than .005 in position. I would like to highly discourage the use of milling on a drill press in a teaching environment. Someone in their own shop in one thing but when students are involved it’s a different story. Starting RPM for a ¼ inch high speed end mill is over 3,000 rpm which is faster than most drill presses will run. With that kind of speed, chatter could break the taper loose on the chuck without any warning. Mr. Mike |
Re: One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop
One tool I thought I wouldn't need much but I ended up getting for Team 11 was a tapping head.
At some point we had this idea to drill *lots* of holes into aluminum and tap them instead of using rivets. We have Haas CNC lathe and mill but the rigid tapping feature is over $1,000 after it times out. Not to mention the tap holders and hardened taps. You can still get tapping heads and at that, tapping heads for CNC machines. So I grabbed a couple of old Tapmatic NC. We still need to make an interlock plate for the face of the Haas spindle but once we do we can tap in the Haas mill with it and it even works with the 10 tool changer. Then if something happens to the Haas mill we can tap in the manual mills with the same tapping head. If we have no milling machines there's always a drill press with the same tapping head (you put the interlock bar against the post of the drill press). All the interlock does is hold the body of the tapping head from spinning. So since this tool can easily be gotten for cheap and can be gotten to work on a drill press. If someone envisioned lots of tapping (say for tool plates or Erector set parts or something like that) it might be handy to have around. No idea what a tapping head is, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtYzhlKFbjA |
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