New Mill – Starter Tooling

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Posted by JasonB on 19/10/2018 15:39:10:

Ron, have a look part way down this page for making those parts.

Thanks Jason, I would recommend any beginner to read through your Jowitt engine build in the link you provided. It is like a machining guide in itself, I read through all of it and picked up quite a few tips and ideas on "how to do" it will certainly help me.

Good ideas I probably wouldnt have thought of: Mounting the feet blocks on a dowel across the vice top and tangental cuts, then finish with a file for a radiused end. Tap mounted in the chuck with the wrench attached for tapping true to the work piece. Packing up the side of the vice for cutting shallow angles.

Great stuff

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 19/10/2018 17:00:43

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Well they say the proof of the pudding, the temperature in the shop this afternoon went into the 80,s as it did yesterday and the mills X axis tightened up again, which proves its temperature related. I adjusted the gib screws to a balance of smooth operation with the minimum of play in the table. So it will be interesting to see in the morning when the temp is in the 50,s how much the play has increased.

Have any of you guys experienced this or is it only me who,s mill has summer and winter gib settings…lol

Edited By Ron Laden on 19/10/2018 20:19:00

[Anonymous]

Posted by Ron Laden on 19/10/2018 20:17:19:

Have any of you guys experienced this or is it only me who,s mill has summer and winter gib settings…lol

Never noticed it on any of my machines. If the temperature changes are fairly slow I'd expect all parts of the machine to change temperature roughly together. There'd only be a problem if different materials are involved. What are the gib strip, table and body made of?

Andrew

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Andrew, the gib strip is steel and the table and base are cast iron.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Agree with Andrew but one might, pehaps experience a tiny difference if the gib is constrained between the ends and being deformed… only noticed if it is set tight, when cooler, I suppose.

All my gibs are the multi-point adjuster type, so not constrained on length. My workshop has not varied by more than a couple of degrees in the last fortnight. That is 2 degrees Celsius, of course, not 16+.

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Problem found and fixed.

The gib was sliding back and forth 3 or 4 mm, it wasnt located on the screw dog points. I removed the gib and it was a bit pathetic to be honest, the 4 dimples for the dog points had no real depth and the positions were off, witness marks from the screws were 1.5mm off centre and all siting at about 2 o'clock.

I picked up the witness marks with a small centre drill and drilled 2mm deep with a 2.6mm drill, the dogs are 2.5mm dia but I allowed a couple of thou for fit. Polished the gib and re-fitted, the screws located as they screwed further in. Adjusted until I had a good feel to the the handwheel and managed to get the added bonus of no play in the table.

I guess what was happening with the high temperature was that the expansion as tiny as it is was just enough to let the gib slide out of postion as they were not located and then lock up.

Ron

 

Edited By Ron Laden on 20/10/2018 08:44:21

Edited By Ron Laden on 20/10/2018 08:55:54

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

This is a common problem with these mills. Try modifying the gib screws as shown in ARC's guide to rebuilding the X1 mill: **LINK**

Russell

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

I know I,m a pain but can anyone tell me what these small blocks which are supplied with the vice are used for, I have no idea.

[LimpetParticipant @limpet]

Ron I believe they are to fix on the bottom of the vice so you can (supposedly) locate them in the table slot for easy alignment with the table, that's if they fit your table slots. I never bothered with mine preferring to 'clock'the vice in with a dial gauge.

Jason

I have just read your full jowett build and very impressed, also do you more details of you vice stop how it's fitted.

Lionel

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

They presumably are the locating keys (mentioned as supplied with the vise) so hopefully they will fit into the keyways on your table, when affixed to the bottom of the vise to align the base, either lengthways or crossways. Not much use if you are not using the swivel base, I would think.

Edit : not seen the post above – they got there first.

Edited By not done it yet on 20/10/2018 10:16:31

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Thanks guys but no, they dont fit my table T slots, thanks for identifying anyway.

Ron

 

Edited By Ron Laden on 20/10/2018 10:49:24

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

A bookthat mentions them and may also have other information for you is in this link to Google books.

**LINK**

Martin C

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

As said the blocks go into the grooves in the bottom of the vice or it's swivel base. Unfortunately they make then all the same size irrespective of jaw width and at 14mm will be too big for a lot of hobby bench top mills.

A quick tickle with a file suggests they are not that hard so could be milled down to fit your slots leaving a small section at the full 14mm so they still fit snugly in the vice.

Lionel, I'll post some details of my vice stop a bit later.

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Thanks Jason I will give that a go.

I saved a few bob today, I was walking through the cooking section in a cheapie shop when I noticed a shallow sided roasting tray, it reminded me of a mill oil tray certainly not a millions miles from one. I bought it, it will just need 4 holes for the fixing bolts at £2.99 instead of £32 for the mill tray there was no argument.

The SX2P uses 8mm T nuts which have a M6 thread, they are quite small, in fact the two I used to fasten down the vice look a bit lost and I used two of the small clamp bars to stop the M6 nuts pulling through the vice fixing slots. I guess they do work but by choice I think I would be happier with M8 threaded nuts. I was thinking of making some but even easier buy the 10mm (M8 thread) T nuts which are just over a tenner for 10 off and modify those. The table slots for the top of the T is a tad over 8mm so M8 rod/bolts will fit but there wouldnt be a lot of wall thickness left in the nut top front and back. Plenty of meat left and right and also plenty in the base of the nut. Think I will get a pair of 10mm nuts and see how they turn out.

p.s. Almost forgot to say that the shed was over 80 degrees again this afternoon and no problem with X handwheel so the gib mod did the trick.

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 20/10/2018 17:00:19

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The tee nuts can be quite hard so may not be that easy to alter.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The slots on my mill are not quite the same width by a thou or three.

I milled down the stops for my vice a bit (easy with carbide tool, I think HSS will be OK) and fitted them so that to align my vice I just push them to the back of the slot.

Note- your vice may be like mine so that without the swivel vice the slot runs along the length of the vice, which may or may not be what you want. Jason seems to have got lucky and has two-way slots.

Obviously if you use them with the swivel vice they will only be as accurate as the alignment of the vice with the base, but you can still remove and replace the vice using them if you don't swivel it.

Neil

[LimpetParticipant @limpet]

I'll look forward to it Jason

Thanks Lionel

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Vice stop in this new thread.

I also took these couple of photos to show how much longer the long series cutters mentioned the other day are compared to standard length ones.

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Thanks Neil, I will take my vice off the mill in the morning and have a look.

Thanks for the photo Jason, I cant see me needing one of the long reach just at the moment, looks useful though when you have larger jobs to consider.

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

My £2.99 oil tray, I think it will do the job, its "non stick" too..

The vice location blocks supplied with the vice are a no go. Compared to the 8mm T nut you can see they would need most of the sides and counter bore milling away. It would be a simple job to modify a pair of T nuts but as Jason said they seem to be pretty hard. Another option I thought of was to take some square steel bar and produce an elongated T nut shaped block which spanned across to both fixings. The fixing screws would need their heads turning down to fit through the table slots. Also the block would have to be removed to fit the vice to its swivel base but thats not an issue.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

That tray will catch any oil that drips off the machine, but I find the problem is the coolant and chips that fly off!

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

I realise that John, I just wanted to catch the drips/runs off the machine, flying swarf/coolant is another issue.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ron Laden on 21/10/2018 09:08:19:

The vice location blocks supplied with the vice are a no go. Compared to the 8mm T nut you can see they would need most of the sides and counter bore milling away. It would be a simple job to modify a pair of T nuts but as Jason said they seem to be pretty hard. Another option I thought of was to take some square steel bar and produce an elongated T nut shaped block which spanned across to both fixings. The fixing screws would need their heads turning down to fit through the table slots. Also the block would have to be removed to fit the vice to its swivel base but thats not an issue.

I forgot SX2 t-slots are tiny compared to the 1/2" nominal slots on the X2.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Ron, an elongated tee nut does not need fixing to the vice. If you have one you could just fit it in a slot with the wide part (matches the vice slot) upwards and then position the vice over it before clamping the vice down. 

Martin C

Edited By Martin Connelly on 21/10/2018 12:33:40

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

Hi Martin, of course now why didnt I think of that.

Many thanks

Ron

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