One tool/machine to level up a moderate shop

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Can anyone who's used an x-y milling vise on a drill press answer my question about edge-finding?

I haven't used one, but why would it be any different than on a mill?

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Cory

I haven't used one, but why would it be any different than on a mill?

A drill chuck isn't nearly as precise as a collet - seems possible to me that it might not gain you much. As we don't have an edge-finder (since we don't have a mill), I'm just looking to know if it'd be a worthwhile purchase if we were to pursue this.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

A drill chuck isn't nearly as precise as a collet - seems possible to me that it might not gain you much. As we don't have an edge-finder (since we don't have a mill), I'm just looking to know if it'd be a worthwhile purchase if we were to pursue this.

Any non-garbage drill chuck should have minimal runout. We will use an edgefinger in a drill chuck on our manual mill.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by Cory

Any non-garbage drill chuck should have minimal runout. We will use an edgefinger in a drill chuck on our manual mill.

Agreed. Your drill chuck won't be the limiting factor in finding that edge. More likely, you'll lose accuracy from your mill/drill press not being trammed and the actual edge finder itself (only good to within a few thou).

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.

[Oblarg]

Thanks for the replies.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Do you find that putting one of these on a standard drill press holds tight enough tolerances for tube/gusset plate constructions? We've been doing those purely by match-drilling, but being able to drill them independently would be very nice.

Also, if you do have your drill press set up with one of these, do you just use an edge finder in the drill press the same way you would on a mill?

I find that each hole needs to be center-punched, even with an X-Y table, because the bit tends to wander otherwise. Considering that, I don't use an edge finder but line it up by eye.

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.

Originally Posted by asid61

Drill presses are not designed AT ALL for milling.

Originally Posted by Travis Schuh

but I would highly recommend against doing milling.

I thought that was clear in my post, but perhaps not.

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).

[techhelpbb]

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.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Jared

Agreed. Your drill chuck won't be the limiting factor in finding that edge. More likely, you'll lose accuracy from your mill/drill press not being trammed and the actual edge finder itself (only good to within a few thou).

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.

An edgefinder is better than a few thousandths. The good ones (Starrets are like $10 on ebay) are good to a thousandth or better.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by asid61

An edgefinder is better than a few thousandths. The good ones (Starrets are like $10 on ebay) are good to a thousandth or better.

An edgefinder in a drill chuck on a drill press (which likely isn't trammed as well as a mill would be) is unlikely to do any better than a few thousandths. You'll also need a really smooth x-y table to be able to move the part in small enough increments and react to the edge finder. It may be possible with smooth parts and an edge finder on a mill in a collet in good shape to get accurate to within one thousandth.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Jared

An edgefinder in a drill chuck on a drill press (which likely isn't trammed as well as a mill would be) is unlikely to do any better than a few thousandths. You'll also need a really smooth x-y table to be able to move the part in small enough increments and react to the edge finder. It may be possible with smooth parts and an edge finder on a mill in a collet in good shape to get accurate to within one thousandth.

That's not the edgefinder itself. That's still the drill press.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by asid61

That's not the edgefinder itself. That's still the drill press.

What I tried to say in the first comment was that the drill chuck wouldnt be the main source of inaccuracy. My few thousandths comment was trying to say that the whole setup on the drill press minus the drill chuck would be within a few thousandths, but I've now realized that the comment isn't clear at all. I think we're in agreement, but my first post wasn't well written.

[Mr. Mike]

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

[techhelpbb]

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

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

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

I would check out the procunier tapping heads (same as in the linked video) - they're expensive new ($500-700) but are pretty easy to find on ebay for ~$100-200. Make sure it includes the collets, since those run ~$20-30 each.

The 1E model covers #0 to 1/4" taps, and the 2E covers #8 to 1/2" (in aluminum). You can find them with 1/2" straight shanks or morse taper shanks. I used the 1E model, it struggled a bit with 1/4" taps but the clutch was probably adjusted a bit too low. I would probably try a pick up a 2E since we didn't use it for anything smaller than a #8.

The CNC part is probably not relevant to the OP, but as an aside, pretty much any CNC mill should be able to tap threads using a "floating" tap holder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5lrphpqUCY
http://www.maritool.com/Tool-Holders...duct_info.html

One of the main benefits of rigid tapping is that you can put taps in any normal "rigid" toolholder (ER commonly), so you do end up saving some money that way.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

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 might be able to talk Haas/your HFO into giving you that option at a discount/free.

The math may still work out better for having the tapping head to use off machine in a drill press, but you don't need any specialty holders/taps for CNC use. Any run of the mill tap held in an ER or TG collet (or whatever your collet of choice is) works fine.