A key, or a keyway in the arbour ?

For a key, consider looking at lathe tool bits, and you can always grind one to suit. I've had good luck finding the right size to use on motor pulley shafts when nothing else was available.

Sean , sorry if this sounds a bit obvious but in your photo of the Centec it looks like all you can see is the keyed spacers and the cutter. The actual arbor is underneath the spacers thats in your photo. If im wrong then just ignore.

Sean,

Your Centec is a similar size to my Sharp and I assume it has a similar 1" diameter arbor. The Sharp arbor does not have a keyway (although the spacers do). Slippage does not seem to a problem on my machine, friction from the spacers and nut seems to be perfectly adequate to hold the cutters firmly on these relatively low powered machines. No problems with a 3" wide slabbing cutter on mine.

HTH,

Rod

My 2c horizontal arbor has a ¼" keyway. It is Int30, though whether that is a factor I don't know.

It is indeed an adjustable stop, or rather a pair of them. I your case they are to limit cross slide movement, by adjusting to hit the vertical peg in the centre above the cross slide screw.
If you had power cross feed, one could be set to disengage it at a suitable point after the cut has finished.

N.B. on my 2B, I've found that it disengages the half nut operating lever fine, but there's enough friction, when the half nut is engaged in the turning leadscrew, that it stays engaged and the table keeps moving.

Sean,

I was going to reply much earlier on this thread, but things got in the way and parts became irrelevant.

The 1" arbor that came with my machine has no keyway and I am not going to put one in that – or the 22mm arbor I made recently. Yours is only a one horse machine, if that. So I am in agreement with Rod. para  

With cutters like slitting saws it can be better if the cutter can slip, should it jam, rather than the alternatives. Adding a full length keyway could cause the arbor to go out of true, so I would only consider a short keyway, if thought necessary. para  

There is no real need for a shorter arbor, for a machine such as this, I would say. If you wanted to make something, you would perhaps be better making an alternative support bracket/bearing that could run on an inboard bearing? Or an arbor of different diameter? para  

Making its own riser block to improve head space for a vertical head (when you find one) would be a useful addition.

Get a slab cutter, wide enough for your QCTP holders and any others that would help with that project. para  Job lots of second hand cutters occasionally appear on epay, some of which might still be in fair condition and the right size for your arbor.

Edited By not done it yet on 13/07/2017 23:28:47

I believe they would take up less room than a collet holder or am I wrong in this .

You are right. Sure they do, but they have downsides, too.

Only taking a specific size milling cutter shank is the obvious one (no different than Clarkson holders, mind).

ER collets are far more universal (now) than either of the above, so making a riser block for your mill would likely be a better way to go. Then you will have more head space for your Clarkson cutter holder … and also o

ffers more, with either ER or 2MT collets.

You are going to need some long end mills if you want to use them in the horizontal 2MT taper? I can't see much advantage of using it as a vertical mill on its side. Undoubtedly there are some jobs, but few that would not be easier on a vertical miller.

There is only about 4" of cross travel available? You won't find many u-toob videos using a horizontal milling machine in this fashion.

If it were that good, they would not have bothered to supply the vertical head!

Using the horizontal hole to drive endmills, flycutters and boring heads is going to be a hell of a lot easier than trying to do it using a vertical slide on the lathe so worth while using that method while you keep an eye out for a vertical head, It will make a very good littel horizontal borer.

Best thing to do is once your vice is painted up is mount it along the length of the table and see how close the edge of the jaws come to the spindle nose. This will give you an idea of how much room you have to play with, if it goes quite close to the nose then MT collets will be the shortest option, nexp up would be a couple of weldon shank holders with an ER25 or ER32 collet chuck needing about 2" space.

I really don't see why long endmills wouild be needed, infact as the table goes almost to the horz spindle noze you are more likely to find you need short series cutters rather than long ones as the dia goes up.

J

Edited By JasonB on 15/07/2017 14:18:01

Edited By JasonB on 15/07/2017 14:21:34