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Learning how to use the Mill

janschutz

Corn Hauler
I am fortunate that at work, they let me use any tool they have. Last weekend I came up to learn how to use the mill. The head machinist is also a woodworker. I had cut some red cedar slabs and we will make some tables out of them. I got to practice with some of the smaller pieces. We were using the mill to make the services parallel.

Wood1.jpeg Wood2.jpeg

The slabs for the tables are about 33" diameter. We most likely will use the router table to shave them down (another new tool to me to use).
 
You put wood on an end mill?! For shame. I knew some old German men that would be spinning in their graves. Hell, I got smacked in the back of the head for using a hand file wrong by them.

Use a router as that is intended for wood and leave that poor mill alone. lol
 
You put wood on an end mill?! For shame. I knew some old German men that would be spinning in their graves. Hell, I got smacked in the back of the head for using a hand file wrong by them.

Use a router as that is intended for wood and leave that poor mill alone. lol

Running a bit too far into wood is a lot better than ruining it in a block of steel. Besides I was on the $40K trainer mill, not the $100K production unit.
 
Mills are a ton of fun. Doesn't take long to get comfortable enough to be able to make some decent brackets etc. I'm on the hunt for a small "table top" unit now myself. Always something I need I could make at home rather than running off to use someone else's machine.
 
If I get good on the router tables here at work, my son has a nice 5 axis unit he "might" let me play on.
 
I don't understand how this is milling wheat into flour...
 
IMAG3813_zpse0vqqxrz.jpg

Laugh at my restraining and positioning tools if you like, they worked. (No one is surprised as me.) Cheap stainless headers for the truck. One side fit great, the other ran straight into the frame. Noting how thick the flanges were I clicked on the idea of flycutting that flange at an angle that would aim the outlet between the frame rail and the starter. Enter trigonometry and calculus! OK, not really. I figured about a 12 degree cut would do it. Flycutting stainless is horrible and sucks. I ended up doing the finish with a grinding stone that had to be wet to work. So then I had to rig up a cooling application and catch pan setup as this is a dry mill. No pictures of that since it was even more jerry-rigged and goofy looking than the header clamps.
In the end my estimation was dead on, it fit great, and I got all sorts of entertainment figuring out how to get it done.
I hardly get to use this old mill, I inherited it from pop-in-law. The quill was seized when I got it and it had bad bearings. I rebuilt all that. The fine feed gears for the quill are stripped, hence no handles on their feed cranks. I haven't needed that feature yet so haven't bothered. Sooner or later the fact that it doesn't work will bug me a bit too much and I'll look into sourcing some new gears. Parts for this thing are expensive and difficult. Tooling is way expensive. It's big, in the way all the time, and hardly ever gets used. But if you like making stuff and get the chance to own a mill, I highly recommend it.
 
IMAG3813_zpse0vqqxrz.jpg

Laugh at my restraining and positioning tools if you like, they worked. (No one is surprised as me.) Cheap stainless headers for the truck. One side fit great, the other ran straight into the frame. Noting how thick the flanges were I clicked on the idea of flycutting that flange at an angle that would aim the outlet between the frame rail and the starter. Enter trigonometry and calculus! OK, not really. I figured about a 12 degree cut would do it. Flycutting stainless is horrible and sucks. I ended up doing the finish with a grinding stone that had to be wet to work. So then I had to rig up a cooling application and catch pan setup as this is a dry mill. No pictures of that since it was even more jerry-rigged and goofy looking than the header clamps.
In the end my estimation was dead on, it fit great, and I got all sorts of entertainment figuring out how to get it done.
I hardly get to use this old mill, I inherited it from pop-in-law. The quill was seized when I got it and it had bad bearings. I rebuilt all that. The fine feed gears for the quill are stripped, hence no handles on their feed cranks. I haven't needed that feature yet so haven't bothered. Sooner or later the fact that it doesn't work will bug me a bit too much and I'll look into sourcing some new gears. Parts for this thing are expensive and difficult. Tooling is way expensive. It's big, in the way all the time, and hardly ever gets used. But if you like making stuff and get the chance to own a mill, I highly recommend it.
Good job!
 
Mills are a ton of fun. Doesn't take long to get comfortable enough to be able to make some decent brackets etc. I'm on the hunt for a small "table top" unit now myself. Always something I need I could make at home rather than running off to use someone else's machine.

I'm looking too. At first I gave in to the temptation that bigger is better, but finally decided that if I really need a bigger mill I can always trade-up. Currently I'm looking at the Hi Torque Mini Mill 3990 from Little Machine Shop. Its a descent size for a mini and is variable speed, is belt drive driven (gears will get destroyed), and has a brushless DC motor. If you want some good instructional videos go to Swarfrat.com. Expect to spend as much for tooling as the mill.
 
Stood in front of a Bridgeport mill for a few years at my uncles machine shop. Miss having access to those machines. Business was sold years ago. One uncle is 6 feet down and the other probably would not know me. He calls my cousin, his son, you. “Who am I dad?” “You” o_O

fd
 
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