Reply To: practice milling

[willofiam]

Thanks guys, Mclark3617 I never thought about the spray bottle, great idea….I bought some chunks of 6061 aluminum, brass, cold rolled steel, tempered steel at the guy I was talking about, he is better now and has really been a great help, I am glad he is back in action and I think we will start up a good relationship, several guys there were asking for my business card as we talked about milling.

So far I have learned to “clock” the table, I think thats what it is called, square the vise using a spindle dial indicator, finding edges with a starret edge finder (the one that is spring loaded and smooths out when the edge is found, -.1″) squared up a large chunk of aluminum, played with the DRO milling grooves, shoulders and angles for specific measurements in all axis, pretty accurate, need to work on seating the piece in the vise perfectly as one edge was off a bit (I did make sure the surface was clean and used a dead blow) somewhere I think I missed a step in the squaring up process, will have to go over that again. For the aluminum while facing I was using 490 rpm with a 3″ facing bit, smaller size end mills I went up to 920rpm, I went through the machinery’s handbook to find the rpm for aluminum but it didnt make sense to me, It seemed like a much higher speed would work but I am a little leery being so new. I am manually feeding.

Hey Chris, take a look at my shop pictures, I added a couple of the mill.

David, I bought that dividing head, I pulled the trigger before I got your response, I may have paid a bit more for it but I was able to talk with the guy and he will stand behind it, also said I could call him anytime if I had questions on machining, I guess it just had to happen that way. should be a nice setup to last a lifetime, who knows if I will use it at full capability, maybe?
Thanks again guys, have a fantastic night, William