Reply To: practice milling

[mclark3617]

I think what you call clocking i call traming, its squaring the head up to the table,,,that can get tricky.

As far as getting it to lay flat, it could be your vise is sprunk or mabey just not that square, in any case just put a piece of paper on the top edge of the vise opposit the side that it lifting. if your part is not square it wont tap down flat either cause it will always want to line up flat against the back jaw. Thats were the paper will force it down flat on the parallels

That edge finder you have is a good one but only acurate to about .005, if you want it right on theres a way to pick up the edge with your indicator in the spindle. Its hard to explain, it involve getting your spindle centered on the edge and adjusting your indicator to read “0” as you rotate it back and forth, then you lift it over the edge turn the indicator 180 and place a block against the “0” edge and the indicator should read “0” again. Its hard to explain, you almost need to be shown.

Aluminum is funny, they say runn it real fast, you can but you dont have to, and if you run it too fast without coolent you will notice the aluminum melting and sticking to the cutter edge.