Making a milling attachment for SB Heavy 10 - need clamping advise

I am planning on making a milling attachment for my heavy 10 since all the other ones I can find are just too expensive. I ordered the following (pic attached as well):

Lathe Vertical Milling Slide Attachment Fixed Base Myford 7 Series Suitable | eBay

So I have 2 questions about clamping: clamping the milling attachment to the cross slide or compound and then clamping a vise to the milling attachment.

1. I think the easiest way to do this would be make a t nut to go into the compound base, and then tap 2 holes into that for the milling attachment to bolt in to. Only concern here would be overall rigidity and if the height would be too high. I also have a spare cross slide I could use to bolt the attachment directly too but then I would not be able to swivel it?

2. This one I think comes down to finding the right vise. Lets say I were to buy one of the following 2 vises (pics attached). How would you fasten them to the t slots?

Any other creative workholding ideas that would work with this setup?

Dan1900 said:

Any other creative workholding ideas that would work with this setup?

Click to expand...

Kinda short on space for bungee-cord or a Kurt vise. Might try double-sided tape or tie-wraps.

Possible exception of this one AND its clever workholding:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/globe/

...most "milling attachments" for light lathes are DIY injury / DIY stock-damager, even DIY lathe-damager "suicide kits".

Upside is they can make a Chicom "mill drill" actually look attractive by comparison, or save a cheap/free old horizontal "real mill" - even Civil War era (US, not English..) from the scrap pile.

A browse of Tony's lathes.co.uk site, small mills in a massive variety, and compare where they are STOUT, even when tiny, and you should soon grok the reasons a light lathe "attachment" just dasn't cut it as safely and well.

Yeah unfortunately the working surface on the milling attachment is 4"x5" so a bit small to attach a standard milling vise.

I 100% plan on getting a proper full size mill after I move into the new shop and have some extra space, but for now I need to go this route.

Monarchist said:

Kinda short on space for bungee-cord or a Kurt vise. Might try double-sided tape or tie-wraps.

Possible exception of this one AND its clever workholding:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/globe/

...most "milling attachments" for light lathes are DIY injury / DIY stock-damager, even DIY lathe-damager "suicide kits".

Upside is they can make a Chicom "mill drill" actually look attractive by comparison, or save a cheap/free old horizontal "real mill" - even Civil War era (US, not English..) from the scrap pile.

A browse of Tony's lathes.co.uk site, small mills in a massive variety, and compare where they are STOUT, even when tiny, and you should soon grok the reasons a light lathe "attachment" just dasn't cut it as safely and well.

Click to expand...

Dan1900 said:

for now I need to go this route.

Click to expand...

Maybe not.

These gadgets arrived in the Carbon-steel cutter era, could be handier than hammer and chisel+files, even if not by much. Our Jr HS had SB's "factory" one, and it was nought but a time-waster.

Nowadays? Can you say "carbide tooling"?

Before - and now and then even SINCE - acquiring a couple of mills, I've used:

- a carbide blade on a Lowe's "Kobalt" compound miter CARPENTER's saw to "mill" steel and shiney-wood. Same-again on a tablesaw, shiney-wood, not (yet) steel. A "wet" diamond tile-saw is another candidate, cheap as they are.

- a variable-speed WOOD (mostly) router. Cuts Cast Iron as easily as seasoned White Oak.

- a variable-speed "oscillating" saw.

All with a bit of jiggery-pokery as to clamping and guides, of course, but these are generally fast and cheap.

I have both air and electric powered heads plus 3-axis traverse for the Panto-Engraver, and can ga-ron-tee it will do a rather precise job of milling even complex curves, and probably not give up speed to a SB with "attachment", either.

If...I had the gadget you linked to? It would probably find one of my "Precise" grinding spindles clamped to it, rather than a vise.



2CW

You would get more rigidity if you attach it directly to the cross slide. Make yourself the mushroom head that is on the bottom of the compound and make sure the vise has a decently large bearing area, basically the same as the stock compound. Doing that would still allow the vise to rotate exactly the same, but there would be one less flex point in the mix. You'd also get the ability to run larger size stuff. The stock SB attachment is built in that way.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...-milling-attachment-milling_attachment-01.jpg

I would try to put the round dovetail directly under the vise jaw rather than hanging it off the side if possible. The more overhang you have, the more floppy the whole rig is.

Thinking about it, between the vise jaw and the slide mechanism that would have to sit on for the X adjustment you may never actually get your workpiece below the centerline of the spindle if its attached to the top of the compound without overhanging the carriage a fair bit. There were some mill attachments that sit on top of the compound more or less like you describe but I understand they didn't work very well.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...ent-9-south-bend-lathe-milling-attachment.jpg

basically you use the lantern post and a bar or an empty tool holder as your clamp to hold this thing down. You can imagine the flex in all that.

people are going to hate this..

I would forget the milling attachment and look for a used cheap mill drill...yeah they suck, but not nearly as bad as a milling attachment.

I used a 500 dollar round column for years, made a lot of money with it too.
It made a fine drill press when I got a knee mill and all my accumulated tooling switched over.

gotta agree with I.10K.

25 years ago I still did most milling on a mill-drill, and all of my turning, including single point threading. The minor advantage was that at least a mill (Mill-drill) can make it's own parts and accessories. So I bought the MLA 5 kit. (The acme leadscrews were single pointed on the m-d, as were the nuts).

While the MLA5 is a great kit, it would be hard to make on a lathe only. However, you can see how the vise is contvrived with the kit. Fairly simple, mostly effective, and keeps the overhangs down. You could make jaws for your attachment either by strapping them on & milling on the lathe. Or by hacksawing and filing.
The dovetail key on the bottom can easily be made on your lathe, and bolted and doweles onto the accessory you show.





http://www.statecollegecentral.com/metallathe/MLA-5.html



PS - per I.10K's m-d note: As a side gig to my woodwork and construction biz, I was making money milling and machining on an import DP in the late 70's/early 80's. One of my customers for whom i made tooling and parts for his pool table building business used to import woodworking equipment. One day they had a couple mill-drills come in in Baltimore, so he grabbed one and dropped it off at my shop so I would be more productive for him.
The mill-drill design is a low rent clone of a style of very high end jig bore/milling machines made in Switzerland. Don Thomas (forum owner) famously used to own one.




The biggest problem with the imports is you may have to re-scrape alignments, and they are somewhat light duty. However, I have SB turret mill, 20" capacity shaper, a 6' metal planer, lots of small SB & Hardinge lathes, and still use the m-d most weeks. The biggest argument against one as a starter machine is that these days for the same money, you can buy a BP size used turret mill at auction. In the late 70's/early 80's before eBay that metric did not apply. Back then used BP's didn't sell at much of a discount from new.

Fehlmann Milling & Drilling Machines - Anglo-Swiss Tools

smt

Wo


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

Here is the route I have chosen to go for maximum rigidity (I hope). I initially did buy that palmgren drill press vise thinking it would be good enough but it would loosen up as I tried to mill on the lathe and overall didn't work very well at all. I returned it and came up with this system instead. I am using 2 piece of 5/8 x 1.5 steel plate that will bolt to t slot nuts with 3/8 cap screws. Two 3/4" cap screws will tighten down on a 5c collet block and the whole setup is going to bolt directly to 2 tapped holes in the cross slide. The t slot nuts are coming in today and then I hope to make some test cuts tonight.

Any thoughts on the overall setup?