What's new
What's new

* Horizontal Mill As Lathe

johnoder

Diamond
Joined
Jul 16, 2004
Location
Houston, TX USA
Some of you may recall the pair of burnouts I got for making a clamp-on wrench for holding the 9 3/4" OD spindle nose of the teens/twenties 24" Lodge & Shipleys to assist in unscrewing the spindle tooling.

I finally got around to making the set up on my K&T 2CH Plain. As a "lathe", it easily swings the 36" this wrench amounts to. Boring it for McMaster-Carr's highest friction brake lining, which I will bond into the bore with Plio Bond 20.

This worked well, but due to avialable high feed rate and not especially rigid set-up, I limited my self to 0.5mm DOC (about .020")

Here are the burn outs from 2" plate:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/24%20X%20168%20LS/Headstock/DCP_1004.jpg

Here are some photos:

DCP_1244.jpg


DCP_1245.jpg


DCP_1246.jpg


DCP_1247.jpg


And here are links to two more:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/24 X 168 LS/Headstock/DCP_1248.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/24 X 168 LS/Headstock/DCP_1249.jpg

John Oder
 
How do you attach the faceplate?

On my 13" OD blob of 6061, I bored the back about .300" deep to be a snug fit on the OD of the spindle nose (5 1/16" nominal, for exact tolerances on this standardized feature, see Machinery's Handbook)

I then put in a pattern of .640 holes on a 4.000" bolt circle.

See photos above and you can see the 5/8" studs holding it on.

There could be classier ways, I just wanted to have something to hold my part.

John Oder
 
Very nice write up. This would have been handy a while back when a guy on the HSM board was having trouble visualizing a horizontal used as a lathe. This topic does come up fairly often and this will help a lot. Are you going to put it into your blog so it is easy to find?

The brake lining idea is a good one. I have made similar, much smaller wrenches and getting them to "bite" can be an issue.
 
I hope you had the chain hoist chain tied back. It looks close in the picture. That would be a hell of a crash if the handle cought on it.:D
 
Thanks, men - chain well to rear - about 6-8" behind column face. This will go in the Blog.

Target bore was 10.211. Actually is about half a thousandth over, surprised myself considering I was setting cut by dropping knee - which has a metric dial.;)

John Oder
 
tnx for the pics , John ......i am always humbled when i see evidence of others creativity ..may never implement it , but it is filed away......

fwiw .....for clamping w/ out brake lining .......always used ground rosin ( brownells ) for friction on blocks holding rifle barrels for unscrewing actions....was sufficient for the smaller diameter usage .......brake linings have to be much superior ......

i look forward to more pics of your restorative efforts
tnx
doc
 
Nicely done, John - thanks for posting the pictures of this setup.

Given the limited swing of my lathes, I suspect someday I'll be faced with a similar issue and attempting something like this on the Van Norman 26.

-Carl
 
Nowhere near as cool as Johns, but I did a little lathe job with my comparatively tiny Nichols;

I used the collet setup since the work already had a shoulder and I always wanted to try it. Not much flex, this was a .040 doc in aluminum, and the spring pass did not produce a chip.

mill-as-lathe-2.jpeg


Regards,

Greg
 
Last edited:
This is also a good way to make a very accurate spindle adapter. I built a VN#2 to R-8 by making the outside VN2 taper and drilling a start hole. Made a quick and dirty undersize drawbar out of threaded rod, just to hold the adapter in place. I then mounted the compound off the SB10L on the table, put in a boring bar holder, and bored out to the proper shank diam. Turned the compound to the proper angle and cut the taper.
 
Nice work John. That is a very versatile machine.. I never would have thought of using it that way.
 
Great examples of the limitless possibilities of limited tool availability.

On the intriguing and (given the economic situation) Timely Topic of doing more with less, did anyone catch the work of a French guy, calling himself 'Romubricoltout', recently flagged elsewhere on this forum ?

He's done a great photo diary online of scratch-building a gorgeous, very cute narrow-gauge live steam 0-4-0 tank loco, like something from a fantastical C19th French engraving, using a nice horizontal mill for some of the turning as well as the milling because his ancient lathe was so clapped out.

He doesn't even have a vice for his mill, so everything is clamped directly to the table - including the turning tools, with a variety of extremely well-used looking clamps.

On the rare occasions he uses carbide inserts, he generally has to fire up his brazing kit to change corners, 'cos he doesn't have many proper holders ... and much of his milling is done using his lathe tools as fly cutters.

The first photo is just a typical photo of turning in the mill - I didn't have time to track down a more interesting one. When looking for that I came across another of his krafty kludges (he's a bottomless resource of those) - he needed to cut some long brass strips for boiler bands so he fired up his wood router with a 45 deg carbide-edged bit and an improvised fence. The 45 deg edge left behind on the stock was quickly squared off in preparation for cutting the next long strip, using a power plane with carbide edges.

Third photo is just to prove his work does not show any deficiencies due to the limited facilities in his TINY workshop
 

Attachments

  • using hori mill as lathe - romubricoltout.jpg
    using hori mill as lathe - romubricoltout.jpg
    28.1 KB · Views: 3,474
  • using a wood router w 45 deg bit to cut brass strips - romubricoltout.jpg
    using a wood router w 45 deg bit to cut brass strips - romubricoltout.jpg
    19.1 KB · Views: 3,274
  • indicative quality - romubricoltout.jpg
    indicative quality - romubricoltout.jpg
    27 KB · Views: 2,958
John, is your K+T a metric machine?

It is. Made for machine tool dealer in Zurich, spent its younger and productive days in Swiss land, came back home and then to me with a three wire 380V motor which I pitched.

John
 
I've a 4-jaw mounted and often clamp a "boring bar" in it sideways as an adjustable 0-12" fly cutter for facing jobs. Smooth, almost reflective finish in cast iron using HSS bits.
 
Bonding In Brake Lining

Cleaned them up with electrical contact cleaner, spread the Pliobond 20 on both steel and lining with acid brushes and clamped them per photos.

DCP_1250.jpg


DCP_1251.jpg


DCP_1252.jpg


DCP_1253.jpg


John Oder
 
Here are five of the seven non PB photos related to Post #1
 

Attachments

  • DCP_1004.JPG
    DCP_1004.JPG
    63.9 KB · Views: 321
  • DCP_1244.jpg
    DCP_1244.jpg
    81.7 KB · Views: 385
  • DCP_1245.jpg
    DCP_1245.jpg
    91 KB · Views: 473
  • DCP_1246.jpg
    DCP_1246.jpg
    92.6 KB · Views: 380
  • DCP_1247.jpg
    DCP_1247.jpg
    77.7 KB · Views: 392








 
Back
Top