Hey, i bought a Benchmaster mill friday. Can i use colletts to hold drill bits and drill with them?
Anybody have a 3/4" Morse Taper No 2 end mill holder?, the draw bar is 3/8- 16tpi.

Yes, you can use collets (within their range) to hold drill bits.

I'd suggest getting an ER type collet holder with a #2 MT drawbar shank and a full set of collets. The imports usually work OK and it's both a cheap and convenient way to hold end mills. Best bet for drilling might be a drill chuck with a 5/8" or so straight shank (to be held in a collet).

Benchmaster mills have no quill, and have a severe "daylight" issue.

So you drill by raising the knee, and there may not be room for a chuck or ER collet holder.

The MT collet may be "it".... depending on the workpiece.

Oops, good point. Looks like there's only 8.5" under the spindle. Probably time to invest in a set of stub drills if you want to use a small chuck.

guys I still need to buy that 3/4" morse taper end mill holder. I have a set of colletts for this machine, the largest is 1/2" and i have a 5/8" end mill holder, so now i need a 3/4" end mill holder.
The benchmaster also came with a drill chuck, but if i can drill with colletts, that adds 3.25" inches of "daylight". the other option which i will explore in the near future is " short " drill bits.

Alan;
5/8" is the largest that you will probably find. Grizzly does sell sell 4 sizes MT#2 up to 5/8". I'd opt for a cutter with a 5/8" shank. Benchmasters are not big machines and you might stall your machine with too large a cutter.

BTW - you might want to see:
Benchmaster Horizontal Milling Machine

I'd stick with smaller cutters.
Jim

Alan - Congrats. Nice little mill. I got one 3 months ago.

Santa brought me this end mill holder set: Tools4cheap LLC Online Machine Shop Tooling Store: MT2 End Mill Holder Set 7pc,Morse Taper 2 Tooling

I don't see a single 2MT 3/4 holder listed, but I'm sure you can call Jeff Beck and order one.

Pics of my BM mill: Benchmaster Mill - a set on Flickr I'll be adding more soon. I'm rebuilding my BM vise. Cleaned up the vise face castings this past weekend and made a set of vise jaws.

Got any pics of yours?

Dale

Dale, thanks for the link, in that set there is a 3/4" end mill holder, thats what i am looking for. I need this 3/4" holder to use it to notch tubing, i have a 3/4", 1", and 1 1/4" end mills, all with a 3/4" shank.

With respect to drilling, you can alleviate some of the daylight (working clearance) issues by employing #2MT shank drills or drill sleeves directly in the spindle. I do that for larger sized drills when using my little Clausing mod. #8520 mill, which also has a #2MT spindle. Just like using the TS of your lathe--keep the tapers clean, seat the drill with a lead hammer, and you are good to go. I have drilled 7/8" holes in carbon steel, no problem.

Another clearance alleviating trick I employ is to borrow the 3/8" OD collets from my antique Black Diamond drill grinder to use as drill holding collets. These are inserted in the 3/8" #2MT collet in the spindle. Note that most modern Black Diamond collets are 9/16" OD and so that trick will not work with #2MT collets.

For end mills, I find the use of collets to be much better, rigidity and clearance-wise, than mill holders. Of course, for the case of an end mill with a shank larger than 1/2 inch, you have no choice.

Forgot to mention--Littlemachineshop.com sells #2MT drawbar shank (3/8-16) to JT arbors for your drill chucks. In my experience they have less run-out and better rigidity than holding a chuck with a straight shank in a 1/2 inch MT collet. I routinely get 1/2 thou or less run-out on my drill chucks mounted that way. Just don't tighten the arbor too much or it will be harder to remove than a collet.

They do sell the MT2 3/4 end-mill holder singly. $20. It's on this page: Tools4cheap LLC Online Machine Shop Tooling Store: Morse Taper 2 Tooling