Thread: Home made milling attachment

I'll post my version of a milling attachment to suit my LAM BH-350 soon. My shed is such a mess atm. I will also be able to refine this after the addition of a mill & rotary table. Work sucks,, it interfere's with our ability to do what we love to do!!

Thanks for that Bob. I will remember this don't you worry. At least I have this bit to go on!!!!

Originally Posted by Oldneweng
This vice came with phillips head bolts / nuts for gib adjustments. I replaced them all with Allen head. Much easier to adjust and lock.

Attachment 209330

The angle plate is attached to the compound vice with a faced 10mm plate. You should be able to see that this plate extends below the angle plate by about 10mm. This extension rests against the machined edge of the cross slide after the tool rest and compound slide is removed at the point of the red arrow in the pic (at full size).

The circle shows one of two holes drilled and tapped to accept a clamp to keep the edge of this 10mm plate clamped flat against the machined edge of the cross slide and hopefully square with the ways of the lathe.

This compound drill vice is not the most accurate so I usually set position then lock the gibs and just use the lathe cross slide for traverse. It has worked well up to now.


Attachment 209331

This is closer to the correctt angle for the attachment to sit, but not on the lathe ways of course. The unit is bolted on to the cross slide via the T-nuts that clamp the compound slide with the bolts thru thick round plugs that go in the big holes.

Dean

Bob, come every photo you show shows the surroundings as clean as an operating theatre?
Mine looks like a hillbilly pigsty in comparison.

Like me you are far too busy working to bother cleaning up a little harmless mess. I have to take a lot of care with camera angles and sometimes background sheets to hide stuff like secret prototypes etc.

Dean

Originally Posted by Pete012

I'll post my version of a milling attachment to suit my LAM BH-350 soon. My shed is such a mess atm. I will also be able to refine this after the addition of a mill & rotary table. Work sucks,, it interfere's with our ability to do what we love to do!!

Yep I agree but hopefully I will retire in less than 12 months and then I can see myself spending a lot of time in the shed.

Originally Posted by BobL

Dean - I'm very sorry I accidently wiped your post while responding to it. This is a BIG danger when being a mod. Do you mind entering it again.

Thanks Dean and Bob for the extra info.


Good idea.

Bob, come every photo you show shows the surroundings as clean as an operating theatre?
Mine looks like a hillbilly pigsty in comparison.

BobL

Careful composition Bob.

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Careful composition Bob.

I need to get myself some of that

Was in at H&F a couple of weeks back and saw they had baby (75 mm diam) rotary table going for a very modest price so I grabbed one. I have since been playing around with a jig to mount it to the cross slide on the Hercus. There's not much swing on those small lathes so getting the table low enough to take a small tool post has proved tricky.

The three pieces that make up the jig are made from 12 mm thick plate, 10 mm thick angle, and 16 mm thick bar, all 8 x 35 mm allen bolted together.

Anyway here is what I have so far.




The top of the rotary table is ~50 mm below the major lathe axis so that should be enough for me to fit a custom tool post on it for some light cuts.

Once again, not even pretending that this is a precision setup but hopefully it will be OK for some mucking about with. I'll only pretty it up if it works well enough.

Here's a couple of pics of my hercus' milling attachment - my grandfather made it 50 odd years ago and I inherited it with the lathe. It just sat on a shelf for the first year after I got it because I had no idea what it was

Originally Posted by festy_

Here's a couple of pics of my hercus' milling attachment - my grandfather made it 50 odd years ago and I inherited it with the lathe. It just sat on a shelf for the first year after I got it because I had no idea what it was

Nice one Festy. That was how I was going to do mine but I thought that basing it on a more generic 90º angle plate would enable me to use the angle plate for other things. I have since welded a pair of gussets on the angle plate which has really stiffened it up nicely.

Do you have a vice for yours?

Originally Posted by BobL

Was in at H&F a couple of weeks back and saw they had baby (75 mm diam) rotary table going for a very modest price so I grabbed one. I have since been playing around with a jig to mount it to the cross slide on the Hercus. There's not much swing on those small lathes so getting the table low enough to take a small tool post has proved tricky.

The three pieces that make up the jig are made from 12 mm thick plate, 10 mm thick angle, and 16 mm thick bar, all 8 x 35 mm allen bolted together.

Anyway here is what I have so far.

Snip. Not being a Moderator this is all I can do to your post lol.

The top of the rotary table is ~50 mm below the major lathe axis so that should be enough for me to fit a custom tool post on it for some light cuts.

Once again, not even pretending that this is a precision setup but hopefully it will be OK for some mucking about with. I'll only pretty it up if it works well enough.

What is a very moderate price?

As to precision I hope the angle will be better than mine to start with. I probably mentioned somewhere above that is was about 3mm out of square at edges.

Dean

Originally Posted by Oldneweng

What is a very moderate price?

RRP is $104 and I got it for $83. It got a pretty poor review on another forum but what would one expect for such a low price?

As to precision I hope the angle will be better than mine to start with. I probably mentioned somewhere above that is was about 3mm out of square at edges.

I haven't checked it yet but no doubt some adjustments will be needed

I did a bit more on a mini-custom tool post for the rotary table.

This is where I am up to now.



I still have to add the locking bolts to the tool post base to stop the top part lifting/rotating.

Instead of using the T-nuts that came with the table I milled up a T-slide using my home made Hercus Milling attachment. The tool post base is then attached to the slide and this also locks it to the rotary table.

The vertical adjustment for cutting height is done with the large nut underneath the top part of the tool post. The thread is a 3/4" B (fine - 26 TIP) thread. I borrowed the tap and die from work but I misplaced the die so I was stuck. I though about using a UNF but I was kind partial to the the finer thread. My lathe thread cutting skill is pretty crap so I made a die instead. My tool steel stock is limited to O1 plate and bar no thicker than 1/4" so I cut out a 2" square piece and drilled and tapped it out and heat treated it to harden it up. It took two go's and on the second go a file could barely scratch it.

I then mounted the die plate onto a 2" ring of mild steel so it would sit nicely in a standard die holder. As I discovered, a die made from a tap will cut a thread on a bolt that is too large to fit inside the same thread made by the same tap (is that clear??). After mucking about trying to heat things to get them to expand so they would cut oversize I ran my thin kerf table saw through the side of the ring and die and applied the die handle adjuster screws to compress the ring and after a couple of goes it worked just fine! It took me 3 hours to make the bloody die but I learned a lot!

Nice work Bob. Good idea with the die. I can see this used for cutting spheres on the lathe. Is this what it is for?

I had a look at these rotary tables at H&F and thought I might get one sometime. I cant afford a big one but may be able to make one if I had the little one. In the meantime I would have one to use.

I will be interested to see how you secure the top section. If I was building this I would have just made a sliding vertical shaft with locking screws. You have taken it a bit further.

Dean

Originally Posted by Oldneweng

Nice work Bob. Good idea with the die. I can see this used for cutting spheres on the lathe. Is this what it is for?

Thanks Dean. The main reason I bought the table is I want to be able to make round knobs and wheels with radiused edges

I had a look at these rotary tables at H&F and thought I might get one sometime. I cant afford a big one but may be able to make one if I had the little one. In the meantime I would have one to use.

That was my reasoning as well