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End mill holding for Atlas 12"

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Plastic
Joined
Oct 5, 2016
Location
Pennsylvania
I have an Atlas 12" lathe, and it came with the milling attachment. I understand that milling on a lathe, especially a small one such as this, is not going to be a quick or enjoyable process. However, I have occasional need to mill something, and I would like to get a few end mills and be able to do these jobs myself.

My question is regarding the end mill holding method. I have three obvious options:

3MT collets in the headstock. Solid, multi-purpose. Would require machining a drawbar and would be the slowest method, but probably the most rigid, and perhaps the cheapest.

End-mill holders with 3MT shanks. These will likely have a little more give than a collet, but would offer faster end mill changes. They aren't useful for anything other than holding end mills.

5C collets in the collet chuck I have for this lathe. The chuck adds quite a bit of length off the headstock spindle, and I'm sure would be the least stiff option. It would be the most multi-purpose setup by far, as I have this nice 5C chuck sitting around, but no collets for it.

I guess I could also chuck an end mill directly into the 3-jaw as well, but that doesn't seem like it would work nearly as well as the holder of collet options.

Any thoughts on which method would be best? I'm trying to keep outlay to a minimum, as otherwise the money would be better spend on a mill. As I said, these are occasional small jobs, nothing major or frequent.
 
First, you are on the wrong website, so the thread will be locked very soon.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/machinery-discussion-guidelines-137724/

For future reference, you could have got away with this question if you had left out the brand of your lathe and just asked how to hold end mills in a lathe with 3MT spindle. But lathe milling attachments are pretty much a home shop thing, so it might have still been locked.

Your lathe maker sold a draw bar and 3MT end mill holders. You can buy the holders on eBay, or you can buy a 3MT draw bar type ER25 collet chuck. You get to make your draw bar. Try to get a 3MT device with inch draw bar threads; some have metric threads. Do not use a tanged 3MT device for milling.

Larry
 
For occasional use on a low budget, I can't see why you wouldn't go with a 3MT collet. 3/8" drawbar is easy to make (can be just a filler piece for the end of the spindle and a length of 3/8 all-thread) and it will only take a few seconds to set up.

BTW, this question would be more on-topic over at http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/forums/3-General
 
That's exactly how I started with the same lathe. Tried it once with the milling attachment. That weekend I bought a small Rockwell mill. That tells you how well the milling on the lathe went. Now I have a BP. The A*** milling atachment is worth a few bucks on fleebay. Dump it and move on, if you stay serious with machining you'll end up with a knee mill anyway. IMHO
 
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