Buying a mill – What basic Toolkit?

[Keith FoxParticipant @keithfox28514]

Hi, I recently bought a lathe and am now thinking of buying a mill, possibly a Sieg SX2. However, not being experienced with these, I was wondering what essential pieces of equipment that I also need to buy to go with it and I am talking about basics. I saw Arceurotrade's advert for the SC4 lathe package and was really looking for a list of essential kit like that.

Thanks for your help.

Keith

[Keith FoxParticipant @keithfox28514]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Go this little lot with an SX2.7 recently possibly a couple of items you may not need

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Basic kit of bits-

Collet holder and six collets probably ER25 on the SX2P

Machine vice about 80mm wide

Set of hold down clamps,nut, studs etc

lever DTI and magnetic stand

Few basic Milling cutters say 3-flute 6, 10 & 12mm dia

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Everyone will say different things. Before I recommend tools I’m going to recommend a book.

It’s called Milling, a complete course, by Harold Hall.

In this book Mr Hall shows how to make T nuts and a basic set of clamps. The assumptions are that you have a collet chuck and a set of cutters, plus a lathe so will have a clock gauge and stand and can make a cylindrical square.

As you go through the book you make a useful kit up using the pieces you make as you progress.

In terms of tools I’d say those mentioned above plus a decent machine vice sized to your mill. The book above shows that you don’t necessarily need a vice to begin with though.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

An edge finder is an absolute necessity for acquiring the edge of the workpiece, centres of holes etc.

In the medium term, the next semi-investment for the milling machine should be a DRO and possibly a power feed for the X axis if you have the budget.

Murray

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

As ever, it all depends. If you are going to make replacement parts for old machinery, you will need different kit from making parts useful to modern astronomers, and different again from any mass production working. The only advice, in the absence of more information, should be 'Reserve a sum of perhaps half the cost of the mill, and use it to fill needs as and when they arise.' And it doesn't matter how much kit, and how fancy, unless you are prepared to make mistakes and learn from them, and then find out why things went wrong, and learn from that too.

Cheers, Tim

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

No to all of the above.

Oh dear, this topic comes up every few months and the same bad advice gets repeated. So to save me time typing better advice can be found on the St Albans MES website.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Agree with Muzzer about the desirability of an edge finder and DRO set-up.

For inexperienced users the Huffam style edge finder (wiggler) is probably easier to use than the traditional type linked to by Muzzer. On contact with the edge the probe walks sideways up the edge with a considerable, and easily seen, deflection. Real Huffam types are relatively expensive, around £50.00 a set but have a nice spring loaded nylon on polished steel pivot making them free moving and very repeatable. Getting into the tenths thou region if you have good feel and technique.

The cheap, under £10, 5 piece sets have a collet style holder which is inevitably a bit stiffer but generally they work well enough for a thou or so accuracy once you've dialled in your feel for a consistent error. The uber cheap set I got for my first mill was a consistent 1.5 thou out in my hands. But what do you expect for £1. These days it has the needle point permanently fitted for picking up marked out lines and prick centre dots.

Its arguable that a DRO is almost essential for self taught folks if they are to get up to speed quickly without too many Ooops errors. Old fogies like me tend to forget how much practice it takes before you automatically keep track of handle turns. Not a tool per se but setting up some sort of ruler scale on the X and Y axes can era great help. Section out of a school rule will do if you have nowt else.

Clive.

[BrevaParticipant @breva]

One of the additional "bits" that I bought with my mill was a set of ground parallels

**LINK** (usual disclaimer)

I have found them most useful for all sorts of setting up, both in a vise and on the mill table. A bit of an outlay but I wouldn't be without them. Not an everyday use item but certainly often in use.

John

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Bazyle on 29/10/2017 17:45:29:

No to all of the above.

Oh dear, this topic comes up every few months and the same bad advice gets repeated. So to save me time typing better advice can be found on the St Albans MES website.

That seems seriously limiting to me! I don't believe anyone ever uses just ONE cutter? What about drills? So an ER25/32 collet chuck(depending on the size of the machine) and the set of collets that covers all of that forever is good value.

A vice seems like a no-brainer to me; I rarely use anything else.

Making several appropriately sized T-nuts and clamps is hard to beat as a first job for the machine/machinist.

After that, the jobs you do will dictate what you buy next. I've a bunch of stuff bought for mine over the last ten years, some of which looked essential(angle plate, fly cutter, V-blocks etc) but has never been used

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Having read the very sensible St Albans advice, I found I'd started closer to Jason's list. Main difference was I bought a full set of ER32 collets with a collet chuck and a set of milling cutters, some of which I've never used. The mill came with a drill chuck included – most do I think. A dress-making pin and blob of plasticine substituted for an edge finder, and off-cuts for parallels. For a little while…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Contrary to the St Albans MES advice … I suppose it's fair to say that the 8" Rotary Table was [effectively] my first purchase for the small milling machine. In fact its inclusion as an integral part of the machine table assembly was a major deciding factor in the purchase of the BCA.

In my biased opinion … All small milling machines should be built this way.

MichaelG.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Bazyle on 29/10/2017 17:45:29:

So to save me time typing better advice can be found on the St Albans MES website.

Seems rather limiting to me too; and quite old fashioned?

Andrew

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

As above a sticky pin and a packet of Rizlas are cheaper than an edge finder. There are two questions to answer as far as accessories go and they are how to hold a cutter and how to hold the job. The reality is that you will eventually own most of the options for both. To some extent having an idea of what you may want to hold can help,with your decision, so run through how to set up some of the jobs you may have in mind and this may lead you to an answer. For my own situation a vice is very useful but a clamp set has more flexibility and if you envisage machining large items a vice may be of no use at all. For tool holding an ER chuck is now probably very useful and a popular choice but direct collets give a bit more headroom if that is important. I don't think there is a hard and fast answer to what to buy, ask 10 people and you will get 10 answers all are valid but think what you want to do and that startup list will hopefully fall into place.

Mike

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Jason is hiding his light under a bushel.

His milling for beginners' series starts in MEW 261

You might find Arc offer a beginner's milling bundle in that issue.

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 29/10/2017 23:30:06:

You might find Arc offer a beginner's milling bundle in that issue.

.

Is it true that it can't be shipped to St Albans

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I think Mike must be a mind reader, he has worked out what the next couple of installments will deal with

I also got the same impression as Andrew in that the list seemed dated and was more likely aimed at buying old iron like a Dore or Tom Senior. R8 comments seemed to go against the recent thread and I can't see many buying an autolock over an ER system. Slot & Endmill terms are a bit out of date too, 3 -Flute would be a good all rounder to me and an end cutting 4-flute will plunge or ramp.

There are also a lot of people comming into the hobby that want to get making items for their hobby and would rather spend a few quid on say a set of clamp & studs rather than make their own.

J

[VicParticipant @vic]

One item I thought I needed but couldn’t afford at the time was a £50 clamping kit. This was lucky really as I wouldn’t have used half the items in the kit. I instead bought a couple of straps and step blocks for just a few pounds and used threaded rod or nuts and bolts I already had.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

Posted by JasonB on 29/10/2017 12:36:44:

Go this little lot with an SX2.7 recently possibly a couple of items you may not need

tool envy………..

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

I'm really interested in these posts – there's certainly more than one way to skin this particular cat.

Like Carl Wilson though I bought HH's book and thoroughly enjoyed making my own T-nuts, strap clamps and parallels amongst other stuff.

My mill came equipped with quite a lot of miscellaneous stuff – some good, some less useful but it gave me a start and I think I was pretty lucky.

Jon

[Anonymous]

Drills/cuttes are consumables, so we can ignore them, as the OP asked about equipment. In no particular order here are some things I use on my milling machines:

2-axis DRO – on the vertical mill, single most useful thing I bought

Machine vice – Gets used a lot on both vertical and CNC mills

Ground parallels – used almost every time I use the vice – mine were made by the late father of a friend who was a toolmaker. I also use gauge plate as poor mans parallels when needed

Clamp sets – you can never have enough sets, I have 3x½" for the surface grinder and lathe faceplates and 4×5/8" for the mills. Places like MSC have special offers, around £30 per set, so it's pointless making ones own. They have other uses to:

Drill chucks – can be shared with the lathe, but I have my own set of 4 that are also used with the CNC mill

Toolholders – I use 6mm and 10mm sidelock holders that are part of a "quickchange" system for the CNC mill, as well as the odd use of ER20 collets. I also have an Autolock clone and large sidelock holders for the bigger, >½" diameter, cutters

Angle plates – Over the years I have acquired a large selection from small to large. They get used reasonably frequently

Box cubes – Two acquired from Ebay, used more on the horizontal mill

V-blocks – I've got them anyway, although they're rarely used on the mill. If I need to cut keyways or slots in shafts I usually just rest the shaft in the central T-slot

Edge finder – For quick 'n' dirty I just touch off with the tool on the work, or vice jaws, and a fag paper. For more precision I've got a Haimer

Centre finder – Quick 'n' dirty is done by eye, or touching off on four sides and using the ½ function on the DRO; for precision stuff I've got a different sort of Haimer

DTI and Mag stand – Got them anyway; used on the mills mostly for setting the vice jaws parallel. Of course I could make some keys for the slots on the bottom of the vice, but the T-slots on all three mills are a few thou different, so I prefer to use the DTI to obtain a maximum of ±0.02mm across the jaw width.

Rotary table – Not used that much, especially as the DRO has a bolt circle function, but has it's uses:

My rotary table has a 1" parallel central hole, which I reckon is a darn sight more useful than a Morse taper, as it is easy to make up mandrels for locating the work.

Dividing head – Gets used quite a lot, more so on the horizontal mill. It's a bit of a lump to get bolted down, but with a 56/60 slot disk on the back it is very quick when using it as a spin indexer.

Tilting table – Doesn't get used that much, but very useful when you need to set precise angles and mine was cheap if rather battered:

El cheapo paint brushes – I use a 2" one for general swarf clearance and cleaning up, and ½" one for final cleaning of the T-slots

Nylon hammer – useful for tapping work down in the vice and general "adjustment" of part position

Boring heads – not used much, but like many things when you need it…………I've got a cheapo (Soba?) one for the vertical mill and a secondhand Wohlhaupter boring and facing head for the horizontal. The Soba one works ok, once I ground the supplied tools properly and replaced the cheesy setscrews – oddly they were Whitworth threadform

Apart from clamps and toolholders none of the above are essential to get going. I bought tool/drill holders, DRO, vice and clamp sets new; everything else was bought on Ebay, given to me or acquired elsewhere over time, even if I didn't have an immediate use. There are other accessories I have, but generally they're only available for industrial size mills, so no point in detailing them here.

I'm bound to have forgotten something, but the key thing to remember is that you can start with very little and build up as you go. You can get a long way with simple techniques. For instance want something parallel to the table? I just put a length of gauge plate in a T-slot and butt the work against it. No need to measure anything. Want it at right-angles? Use the gauge plate to act as reference for an angle plate bolted across the table.

Andrew

 

 

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 30/10/2017 10:50:21

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

With the rapid service that some of our suppliers provide it is not necessary to buy more than a minimum setup to get you started. If you plan the jobs coming up and check how you can do them with what you have then if you need something you don't yet have it is usually only a few days until it arrives on your doorstep. It is easy to buy things you fancy and find you rarely/never use them. I have let the tool mania overtake me at times and have quite a few things that do not earn their keep, the trouble with tool mania is it is hard to let go of things as well. If I let my wife sort out my tools I would be left with a screwdriver and adjustable spanner and an empty workshop!

Mike

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 30/10/2017 10:49:26:

Clamp sets – you can never have enough sets, I have 3x½" for the surface grinder and lathe faceplates and 4×5/8" for the mills. Places like MSC have special offers, around £30 per set

Indeed – currently MSC has the generic "52 piece clamp set" on offer at £30 or so (look at the last page of this month's offers shown in the link). I got a (second) set from them recently and they are pretty decent. It would cost you more than that in cutters to "just make your own". Apart from the myriad clamps themselves, there is a useful selection of tee nuts and bolts that are useful for holding down vises etc. I seem to manage 90% of my work in the machine vises. Either way, the table has tee slots, so you are going to want a set of tee nuts and bolts…

Murray

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Point taken about buying tools over making them. But at least if you make the basic bits and bobs you get experience straight off using the machine.

I thought the op was asking for basic kit to get started so rotary tables,Box cubes and the like are out.

[Author]

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