Has anyone ever made their compound into a milling attachment?

Life has me suck in an apartment while my real shop is in my parents Garage 100miles away I managed to get a 9" SBL in my bedroom here in the apartment. As soon as I bought the machine I quickly realized with out basic milling capabilities there isn't much I can do with it.

So I started looking for a milling attachment on eBay yet those things bring cost more than I was looking to spend. Yet when looking at my lathe, I realized, I have a 4x3 angle block, my compound has a nice slide and angle graduations.

Tentatively speaking I am planning on doing the following. I can make the standard southbend round peg that fits to the bottom of the angle block. I can place a hole in the other face, and replicate the way southbend locks the compound on the other side and now I get a vertical slide. All I really need now is some way of placing a small vice or even mill out a block to fit the compound and I should have everything I need to make a milling attachment for my machine.

Does this sound like a good plan? Has anyone done or seen this done? It doesn't sound too rigid but than again having a Cincinnati Toolmaster for a milling machine I am a little spoiled. Unfortunately there is no way to get that in the apartment here so this could be the next best thing.

Anything I may have missed here?

What is missing is a nice, dovetail slide to move the workpiece up and down, you also need some type of vise to hold your work. A South Bend milling attachment to fit your lathe has all the requirements. I saw one on e-bay for $150 that was pretty shopworn and no crank handle. It would cost you $300-$400 for a good one. They are very sturdy and smooth working. You could cobble something up, but it would probably be a P.O.S. Some cheap chinese X-Y tables for drill presses have dovetail slides, but I bought one, and it is a P.O.S.

Lord Byron

Get some material and some dim's and visit home for a weekend and make one on your mill at home. The ones for the compound are for very light stuff only. There are plans on the net for these just google it to find. Some forums have people that made these also. Just do a little research to find something suited for what you plan on doing with it.
Paul

No, you haven't missed any thing. If you can find a way to mount a little drill press vise or the like on the compound in place of the tool post then you're all set.

Seems to me that I've seen small drill press vises with 'ears' on either side....if you made a flat bar the right size to slide into the tee slot on the compound and tapped a couple of holes in it for the 'ear' bolts.......

Go for it!

Pete

Bruce Nelson said:

What is missing is a nice, dovetail slide to move the workpiece up and down, you also need some type of vise to hold your work.

Click to expand...

It took me a couple of times reading the proposal to work out what is being suggested - he is going to make an interface piece to hold his compound rest vertically to use as a dovetail slide with micrometer dial.

Nice idea!

I guess to finish it off he just needs to clamp a small milling vice to the compound using the existing T slot, but depending on what he needs to mill he may only need to use the toolpost stud to mount a plate he can clamp of bolt his work to.

I am slightly intrigued though - is the plan to use an existing accurate angle plate for the interface piece (bolt a dovetail spigot on one side and bore a matching hole on the other for the compound), or is the plan to use a piece of solid steel/cast iron and turn the spigot directly on the bottom and bore a perpendicular side for the compound? If the latter, how do you plan to get the sides perpendicular without a mill, or milling slide?

I kind of wish I'b thought of that rather than buying a crappy chinese slide.

Ah - wait a minute!
One essential feature of the milling slide is the ability to lock it in place once you have set the height, you are going to need to modify the compound rest to fit a lock on the feed screw, otherwise vibration will make it slip and your work will move down while you are cutting. As long as you can arrange that, I think it is a good idea.

A cheap chinese mini mill is about 500 bucks new. I bet you could get one cheap on ebay or craigslist.

Even thought its small it'll blow away a milling attachment on a 9A.

Its small enough to move on your own in one piece. I mounted mine to a 2 inch thick piece of wood and its very easy to move about.

Mbphoton

using an angle block

I actually saw a SB original piece to do exactly this on ebay.

It was an angle block with a compound mount spigot on one face, and a tapered hole with lock down set screws on the other.
Looked like a really simple way to mount a compound vertically.

I am sure you could probably make one from your angle block with some ingenuity.

Others have been here before you...
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/improvised-vertical-slide-thoughts-173271/

On ebay
Using the compound by removing from the lathe add a angle plate with the compound a 90 deg.
I have use the quick change tool post for milling small part.

adammil1 said:

Life has me suck in an apartment while my real shop is in my parents Garage 100miles away I managed to get a 9" SBL in my bedroom here in the apartment. As soon as I bought the machine I quickly realized with out basic milling capabilities there isn't much I can do with it.

So I started looking for a milling attachment on eBay yet those things bring cost more than I was looking to spend. Yet when looking at my lathe, I realized, I have a 4x3 angle block, my compound has a nice slide and angle graduations.

Tentatively speaking I am planning on doing the following. I can make the standard southbend round peg that fits to the bottom of the angle block. I can place a hole in the other face, and replicate the way southbend locks the compound on the other side and now I get a vertical slide. All I really need now is some way of placing a small vice or even mill out a block to fit the compound and I should have everything I need to make a milling attachment for my machine.

Does this sound like a good plan? Has anyone done or seen this done? It doesn't sound too rigid but than again having a Cincinnati Toolmaster for a milling machine I am a little spoiled. Unfortunately there is no way to get that in the apartment here so this could be the next best thing.

Anything I may have missed here?

Click to expand...

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...between-mill-drill-milling-attachment-229799/

In case you want to built one, there are exellent casting sets out there. Paula made one and documented it here:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/milling-attachment-sb-mla-what-do-173107/

I am slightly intrigued though - is the plan to use an existing accurate angle plate for the interface piece (bolt a dovetail spigot on one side and bore a matching hole on the other for the compound), or is the plan to use a piece of solid steel/cast iron and turn the spigot directly on the bottom and bore a perpendicular side for the compound? If the latter, how do you plan to get the sides perpendicular without a mill, or milling slide?

Click to expand...

This is the plan. As for the milling machine vs milling attachment believe me I know, but here is the problem. Life has me stuck in an apartment for the time being at least until this housing market improves. I finally missed having a shop so much that I convinced my wife to let me buy this lathe;


Note the location of my shop, squeezing another machine in there is going to be near impossible!

As for getting a hold of a milling machine, here's a picture of the rest of my shop back in my parents garage in Massachusetts. It is an old picture and I have since put a lot more machinery and tools in it but for the time being it is 100miles away from me. Fortunately dad likes having the shop in the garage so it is safe there till I get a house. In the meantime I needed a lathe, so I got the little southbend but I need a bit of milling capabilities.



I hope this sheds some light on the challenge.

a mini-mill will tuck right on the end of that bench.
i`m considering a similar set-up in my basement.- 3 ft. bed SB,mini-mill,vise,and arbor press all on one bench. small but could still do a whole lot of stuff.

Web page

Don't know if this has been mentioned already

Workshop Projects, Milling adapter SB9

MIKE

Dude,

You apartment is AWESOME!

Do you ever use that lathe to pick up chicks? Hey girl! Wanna go to my bedroom and see my lathe?

I mean...that's just AWESOME!

Phil

HoosierBuddy said:

Dude,

You apartment is AWESOME!

Do you ever use that lathe to pick up chicks? Hey girl! Wanna go to my bedroom and see my lathe?

I mean...that's just AWESOME!

Phil

Click to expand...

Phil, thanks for the compliments, actually it kind of had the opposite effect. There was quite a bit of begging involved to get my wife to go along with this one, but she is a very special person. Though I always worry a little that if I really tick her off I may see it pop up on craigslist one of these days! As you all can likely see, while technically a milling attachment is far less than ideal politically it really is the only option.

I will keep everyone posted with the results. I should be back in my old shop within the next 2 weeks.

Adam

adammil1 said:

Phil, thanks for the compliments, actually it kind of had the opposite effect. There was quite a bit of begging involved to get my wife to go along with this one, but she is a very special person. Though I always worry a little that if I really tick her off I may see it pop up on craigslist one of these days! As you all can likely see, while technically a milling attachment is far less than ideal politically it really is the only option.

I will keep everyone posted with the results. I should be back in my old shop within the next 2 weeks.

Adam

Click to expand...

There's a WOMAN out there that will put up with THAT???

Does she have a sister?

Phil

I did what the OP was proposing a year or so ago for a friend. I had a small dial compound kicking around after changing over to a large dial.

I took a piece of 3" square cast steel, drilled a hole in the side for the compound along with 2 small holes, threaded, for setscrews (same idea as the saddle). Since the lathe still had a compound on it, I drilled a hole top-to-bottom for a 1/2 X 3 1/2" grade 8 bolt, with the head turned to fit into a lantern toolpost square mounting washer/base and a nut to lock it down on top.

I could have also turned the bottom of the block to to fit into the saddle.

We mounted a small vise to the compound with a piece of steel that I milled to resemble the t-nut of a QC toolpost, with 1" extra sticking out each side of the compound, with a couple holes drilled to bolt through to the vise.

The resulting project turned out better than expected, in fact it can do a few things my mill/drill cant! It has X, Y, Z plus tilt/twist and can even do some goofy compound angles.

It is small though, and does have limitations on rigidity, but for an hour of time and zero cost, it was well worth it.