Milling Machine advice

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Ant
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#1 Milling Machine advice

Post by Ant »

Having sold one of my lencos (the teardrop one) I'm considering using the spoils to get a bigger milling machine.
I have a micro milling machine, a proxxon mf70 that is fine for tiny work, but for anything else takes forever, such as the rebate I milled in the arm board on the type 3 lenco I recently built. Took a couple of hours to mill it out in 1 mil steps with a 3mm teeny weeny end mill.

I've narrowed it down to 2 models, the warco wm 12 and the clarke cmd300.

They are about the same price, but I am erring towards the warco model as it comes with a drill chuck with arbour, 2 drawbars (a 10mm and a 3/8" one), a selection of tools for maintenance and a little toolbox for said bits.
The clarke just comes with a drill chuck, no milling chuck included, and makes no mention of draw bars.
The warco also has a slightly bigger traversal range for the table in both directions.
The throat depth is slightly bigger on the clarke at 170mm where the warco is 150mm, and the warco is a 600w motor as opposed to the clarke at 470w.
Neither mention having a clamping set with them.
The warco also says it has low and high ranges to maximise the available torque where the clarke spec doesn't mention it.

What I'm not clear on is the drawbar. My proxxon has a teeny little collet chuck on it, but I presume that the drawbar allows me to directly insert a milling cutter into the spindle, in the case of the warco, either a straight shank 10mm or 3/8" depending on the drawbar? Or given that the supplied drill chucks with both machines have a Morse taper, does it mean that I would need milling cutters with the same Mt as the supplied drilling chucks? Or do I need to get collet chucks for both machines before I can use them?

700 odd quid is a heck of a lot of money to me, so I want to make sure I don't end up with something I need to spend more on buying extra chucks and other bits and pieces just to be able to use it.

Cheers ant
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Ray P
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#2 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by Ray P »

Ant, is this article of interest?

https://knowledge.axminstertools.com/ta ... g-machine/

Axminster do sell good tools BTW, did you look at their range?

https://www.axminstertools.com/machiner ... g-machines

Can't help you beyond that I'm afraid.
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vinylnvalves
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#3 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by vinylnvalves »

A draw bar is essential for milling, as the cutters get pulled out of collets by the cutting forces, I don’t have a draw bar on mine which is a converted jig borer. I have given up milling on it after a number of mishaps with the tool being dragged down, sometimes mms other times thou’s. As the only metal I now machine is Aluminum I use my cnc router for that now. I machined a 20mm thick section at the weekend in 0.1mm increments - with a Mazak it would have taken seconds but took hours- but my work isn’t for profit so cycle time isn’t paramount. Look on some of the interest forums online for advice and private sales.
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pre65
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#4 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by pre65 »

You could try the small ads in model engineering publications. You might find a bigger and better secondhand item.
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Ant
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#5 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by Ant »

Can't do bigger, I haven't got the space unfortunately
These are as big as I can possibly go.
I'd rather go with a new one this time round as Ive been to look at a couple of mills over the past 12 months that were good models but turned out to be in poor condition. went to have a look at a bfe65 a couple of months back, that was supposed to be in really good nick, looked lovely in the flesh but had loads of play in the head bearings. Felt completely shot to me, I wouldn't have thought the spindle should have any real discernable play. The reason I bought the md65 lathe was because it had had new bearings fitted and had the reciept to prove it from a local engineering firm that I use.
The last one I looked at was a seig x1, same thing, shot bearings, that one looked like it had been at the bottom of the canal too.
I passed on them all....
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Ant
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#6 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by Ant »

Aha! Found what I was looking for, apparently the warco machine has 2 options for holding milling cutters.
They are both extra bits to buy however.
It can either use a collet chuck that is grabbed by the drawbar as you would expect, or individual 'direct' collets that are inserted into the spindle and grabbed by the drawbar. Either way its more money. The warco collet chuck goes up to a max of a 16mm shank, the direct collets up to a max of 12mm. With each size insert bought individually. Can't see me needing anything that has a 16mm shank.

It's crackers though, you buy a mill that you cant use as a mill because you can't hold a cutter in it unless you are mad enough to use the drill chuck.........
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vinylnvalves
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#7 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by vinylnvalves »

There is a third way of holding tools, https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/product/set- ... lders-mt2/ This approach allows you to use cutters which have a flat on the side of the shaft to secure with a grub screw. I use one of these in my lathe (parallel shank version) when I use to want rough mill using the cross slide to hold the stock.
Ant
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#8 Re: Milling Machine advice

Post by Ant »

Yep I've seen those before they look really handy
I use chronos for most of the stuff for the lathe, I was surprised how accurate their own brand dial guage was
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