Vertical Slide Mill

[Riesel]

I am considering getting a Vertical Slide Milling attachment for my lathe for light duty milling, mostly for aluminum, enlarging holes and slots in metal, maybe fabrication of muzzle brakes. Has anyone tried one of these devices and do you have an opinion on it's usefulness?
Thanks

 

[clowdis]

Absolutely light duty stuff, may even be too light for muzzle brakes. If you can afford it buy yourself a small vertical mill for the shop. It'll pay for itself in time.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

That would work fine if you don't mind milling sideways! That would be a little odd for me, but I see no reason why you couldn't do muzzle brakes and even heavier duty jobs.

I have a Precision Matthews PM-25MV bench top mill and it can do some pretty heavy duty stuff for its size. Have end mills up to 1" that I use and even bigger wood cutting bits. Reaming barrel channels in a stock is easy. Stainless steel with carbide end mill, no problem. Milled out a SS action ejection port not long ago. Piece of cake. A big lathe is gonna have a lot more power than my little benchtop mill. Just make sure you tram the table/vise every time you put it on, watch your speeds, and keep the metal cool with good cutting oil like you do on the lathe (WD-40 is best for aluminum). Not gonna be boring an engine block with your vertical milling attachment, but a muzzle brake would be easy

And for reference if you do decide to go with a benchtop mill, I have been extremely impressed with the quality of the Precision Matthews. Motors are belt drive so they are ultra quiet. If you ever have any questions their customer support is awesome as well. And with any milling machine, definitely get one with a 3 axis DRO option.

 

[jdh47]

Unless you have a collet setup for your lathe it will be difficult to hold the endmills. You can get a little mill drill relatively cheap and it will do much more than the lathe milling vise.

 

[shortgrass]

Holding milling cutters in collets sux!

 

[tobnpr]

Ditto on a benchtop mill if you don't need (or have the real estate ) for a big boy.
Incapable of heavy or large work due to a lack of mass/rigidity- but if you can work it on the smaller table with light cuts they'll do anything a BP will do.
And yeah- DRO is a must. Unlike my lathe where I view it as a nice "option"- I'd never want to run a mill without one. Too many changes in direction/axes with cuts to accurately account for backlash.

 

[shortgrass]

DRO required? Have you guys ever heard of a dial indicator and magnetic base? That is how it was done in years past, and it still works! And, it is thousands of $$$$$ cheaper! Ya', digital read outs are nice, but not a requirement to do accurate work. I have been setting up, tooling and operating milling machines , both horizontal and vertical for many, many years (like 40+!) and have never viewed DRO as a requirement, just a luxury.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

DRO required? Have you guys ever heard of a dial indicator and magnetic base? That is how it was done in years past, and it still works! And, it is thousands of $$$$$ cheaper! Ya', digital read outs are nice, but not a requirement to do accurate work. I have been setting up, tooling and operating milling machines , both horizontal and vertical for many, many years (like 40+!) and have never viewed DRO as a requirement, just a luxury.

Not a requirement, it's a luxury. A damn nice luxury too

Not sure of any DRO that costs thousands...I purchased/installed my own to save money.

DRO is like digital verniers. Don't need them, mech dials will get the job done, but the digital is so much more convenient. Especially with absolute zero.

 

[shortgrass]

I can get "absolute zero" just as easily, by turning the dial to zero! The Mitutoyo 64pka042 is around $1600 for a 2 axis . A good DRO 2 axis is going to cost that $1600-$2000. I can set-up a nice dial indicator and nice magnetic base that'll more than do the job for $200, and it'll be coolant proof. Ya', I can and do embrace technology. I tool, set-up and trouble shoot CNCs for production. But I also do most all of the "tool work" on manual mills and lathes with dial indicator. Hobby 'machinists' and what they think they need to have because they saw it on the interdnet,,,,,, I guess I'll never get over that idea. The only comparison I can see with DRO and digital calipers is IP67 rating. The tool either has it, or it doesn't.

 

[GenePoole]

I used to use a mighty-mag, but they are very easy to bump and throw everything off. For about 1 hour of work and some scrapalloy, I made this:

 

[Riesel]

I really appreciate all the feedback, lots of good information. I'm going to give this a run and plan to chew up a fair amount of aluminum playing and learning. What, as an opinion, would be the five most useful
"end mills" to get me started, maybe making scope rails or to just learn with.
Thanks

 

[carlsbad]

Nothing good to say about this.

 

[TAJ45]

That was one of our "lessons" late in the apprenticeship. Cut an internal rectangle on a good sized K&T. Tol probably +/- one. You sure learned about lash, table clamping, getting the indicator rod sq on both axis and the corner radii being "stepless" on the blend.