Thread: Using a Mill - Where to get started?

Hi John,

This may be of use:confused:.

http://www.mfg.mtu.edu/marc/primers/milling/index.html

Regards
David

John,
No experience with bench top mills but I have a little bit with the larger ones at school. Basically they can cut metal to a selected shape given the type and profile of tool selected.
If you can learn to read a vernier caliper and micometer you have a good start. Setting the tool for a measured amount of travel from a reference point arriving at a point where you have removed the desired metal would seem to describe the work.
The travel dials all should have dials calibrated in metric.
Some of this movement the revolves around the ability to work in at least 3 independent planes of movement.I assume there are model power boat sites on the web where you could converse with like minded folk. Other than that places like Hare and Forbes keeps books specically written by model enginneering types.The name Tubal Cain comes to mind.No ideas on aluminium in Canberra. Is there a Capral outlet in Canberra?Try a Google search.

Cheers
Grahame

The X1 may be a little small for your needs. The X2 or mini-mill is a more popular model for model makers and can handle much larger work should the need arise.
There are a number of suppliers that stock the X series mills as manufactured by Sieg in China [http://www.siegind.com], here are a few that I know of:

Minitech QLD - http://www.minitech.com.au
Hare and Forbes - http://www.machineryhouse.com.au
Carbatec - http://www.carbatec.com.au

Minitech stock a large range of special interest books on milling and lathe use.
You could also check out Plough Books - http://www.ploughbooksales.com.au. Any book by Tubal Cain, Arnold Throp or Harold Hall are worth the $20 they cost.

Here is a good site that shows how to do the various operations on a mill plus lots more.

http://jjjtrain.kanabco.com/vms/library.html

For me the entry level would be the X2 and anything less would not be rigid enough for aluminum.

There would be a lot of set up time to produce the parts in the photo. I can see a lot of angled and tapered cuts. You cannot do angled cuts on a mill without setting the angle parallel to an axis. Before I get shot down here a mill has an X and a Y axis (the table) and these axis travel in a straight line. You need to have an angled cut parallel to one of these axis before you can cut it. Trying to move both axis in tandem to achieve an angled cut is not repeatable with any accuracy - for most of us just not doable anyway.

Converting your mill to CNC is one answer but the conversion will cost more than the mill. There is a lot of information avaialble on this.

I don't want to put you off your purchase but I also don't want to see you spend a lot of money and be disappointed so try researching this more on a few of the model makers forums to see what they use.

Thanks for the replies. I'll do a bit more investigating before I spend any hard earned $$

I'm making a few simple bits now using a hacksaw, dremel and file out of angle and flat aluminum.

Bear in mind that you'll probably spend as much on tooling for the mill as on the mill itself.
Check out some of the Yahoo groups that deal with the mini-mill for a list of what you'll need to get started.

Milling: A Complete Course by: Harold Hall
I have bought this book via Plough book sales and it is good. The writer starts of by making some of the tooling that you will need. T-Nuts, clamping bars parallel set etc.

G'day All.
As in previous posts, I have an X3 from Minitech.
Great Mill. Love it.
I am getting ready to fit DROs to it.
Minitech have them on special at the moment.

The one thing I have found out so far is not to buy cheap chinese mills and slot drills. They don't last. I have been buying P&N tooling as it is needed. I now have a good supply of mm in both mills and slot drills.
ER-32 collets and chuck. 2 1/2 inch replacable tip face milling cutter and a 2" fly cutter. A few ball nose slot drills and a few round over mills. 4" cast iron angle plate. 4" rotating vice. a few paralls. 6" 4" 3" metal squares. 2 x 12mm clamp kits. Power feed on the X axis.

All i need now is time to play with it.

Trevor,
I use the Chinese HSS cutters and find them good but I mostly cut aluminum so it is not hard on the cutters. I also use carbide cutters from Hong Kong that I get through ebay and they are great. Quite cheap if you buy in packs of 10. Just don't drop them on the concrete or you will end up with two cutters.

The DRO's are terrific and I would recommend you get the Heads with them. The only problem I have is you end up losing the stops when you mount them.
There is an Australian supplier that has CNC kits for the X3 now. Very good quality and reasonably priced. If you plan to go CNC then put the money you would use to buy the DRO's into this kit.

The X3 is very popular for CNC conversion and there are quite a few kits available worldwide. One of the Ubeaut forum members has just finished a conversion using the Syril kit from China.

http://www.cnckits.com.au/

That CNC kit looks great.

What sort of learning curve is it to use the CNC set up? Is it a matter of lining up your balnk material and then let the software do the rest?

John,

Really not a lot to learn but it is new and different so it takes a while to understand the terms and methods. There are CNC forums and I have found them very good with help.

There is nothing mysterious about CNC and you spend most of your time watching it cut or if you are like me you go and do something else.

You have to create a simple two dimensional drawing first and then import it into your CNC software. Nominate your depth of cut for each component, set your material to a reference point and your cutter height and press go.

These is the ultimate way to go for simple and complex shapes for your modelling but as I said earlier it costs.

I take it if had a 3D drawing done in CAD I could plug that in and let the CNC do the rest? I'm just thinking that it would have to be done in at least two steps as the side that is clamped underneath would need to be turned over to enable any work done on it.

Also with the three axis kit, the software should do all the hight adjustments for you, correct?

John,
What you are describing is correct.

With a three axis kit you get 2.5 dimensions. Sounds a bit strange but you can only cut at 90 degrees to the table and you can't undercut the surface above using a straight cutter.

To get true three dimensions in CNC you need six axis. There are rewarding careers for people that can code at this level.


If what you require is complex 3 dimensional shapes then have you thought about casting?