TRICK R8 Tooling

I'm looking for feedback from users of R8 spindle machines (manual or CNC) about any TRICK R8 tooling that increases their through-put, efficiency or simply makes their machining more enjoyable.

I'll start with these:

http://www.jancyslugger.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=products.showProducts&cat=2

http://www.toolmex.com/new/products/index.cfm?cid=1233_1220_422_417&mc=Y

http://www.collistoolholder.com/cgi-bin/parts.cgi?typ=CAT_7_TYP_8

These are various types of toolholders for using annular cutters either with or without Through-Coolant, as well as Weldon shank cutters with Through-Coolant via an inducer collar...pretty trick stuff for an R8 spindle machine!

Annular cutters are EXCELLENT for larger hole sizes and require less horsepower to run, not to mention the finish is equivalent to a bored/reamed hole in many cases.

The best R8 trick I've seen is to take the spindle out and install an Erickson Quick Change #30 spindle.

While I can get a BT30 cartridge for my machine, that's not what I'm trying to discover.

And the QC30 isn't really that great of an upgrade from an integral shank R8 either.

What I want are more tooling options to EFFECTIVELY utilize my R8 spindle to it's utmost.

gbent said:

The best R8 trick I've seen is to take the spindle out and install an Erickson Quick Change #30 spindle.

Click to expand...

More R8

Haven't heard much about this system. Videos appear to show time reduction in tool changes compared to either by hand or even power draw bar.

Has anyone purchased?

MACH-1 Quick Change Tooling System Description

That is a good example of what I'm looking for! Thank you.

Also looking for those accessories that are must-haves and nice-to-haves...bore mounted jig grinders, spindle speeders, etc.

FranH said:

Haven't heard much about this system. Videos appear to show time reduction in tool changes compared to either by hand or even power draw bar.

Has anyone purchased?

MACH-1 Quick Change Tooling System Description

Click to expand...

It's been 25+ years since I've used anything but the Ultron R8 Snap Change on a BP. Never had any problems, can't think of anything that would give quicker, easier tool changes. Might not be the answer if you're going to be doing a bunch of hogging, but for the normal BP sort of stuff I think it's the best.

Michigan Drill - Technical Data - Multi-Tool System - General Operating Instructions

We used the APT Multi tool for rough boring holes. Comes with an R-8 shank and is a piloted flat blade boring bar. It can be a noisy operation but Very effective for removing a lot of material. Too expensive for a one-off job but for repeated use it is very good.
If the gibs in the Bridgeport are loose and the clamps do not work you will know it right away. The machine has to be 'tight' for this to work right. Had eight Bridgeports using this from time to time.

John

What causes the noise? The flat nose of the blade vs an angled nose, or the stiction of loose gibs on ways causing rocking in the bore?

jhruska said:

Michigan Drill - Technical Data - Multi-Tool System - General Operating Instructions

We used the APT Multi tool for rough boring holes. Comes with an R-8 shank and is a piloted flat blade boring bar. It can be a noisy operation but Very effective for removing a lot of material. Too expensive for a one-off job but for repeated use it is very good.
If the gibs in the Bridgeport are loose and the clamps do not work you will know it right away. The machine has to be 'tight' for this to work right. Had eight Bridgeports using this from time to time.

John

Click to expand...

FranH said:

Haven't heard much about this system. Videos appear to show time reduction in tool changes compared to either by hand or even power draw bar.

Has anyone purchased?

MACH-1 Quick Change Tooling System Description

Click to expand...

I was at a small machine shop (1 of 3 @ Mass General Hospital!) recently and they have this installed on one of their Prototrak machines, built on a brand new genuine Bridgeport. They love the system and plan on adding it to the other two BP's they have.

I guess the only think you give up is about 1/4" of travel at the top of the quill stroke. Small sacrifice to make if you anticipate lots of tool changes.

FranH said:

Haven't heard much about this system. Videos appear to show time reduction in tool changes compared to either by hand or even power draw bar.

Has anyone purchased?

MACH-1 Quick Change Tooling System Description

Click to expand...

I kinda doubt a die spring would have the same pull as a threaded draw bar. Although, CNC mills use a stack of belleville spring washers....

Bear in mind that with the Mach-1 system holders all of the "drawbar force" is used exclusively for holding the toolholder in the taper of the spindle. Cutters are held with set screws.

You can buy their fixture to modify your existing R8 collets, but if one does that then I agree it's not going to have the holding power of a normal hand-tightened threaded draw bar.

They also offer a "collar" type of holder for the larger diameter tools. Those strike me as being even better than the long Weldon shank holders we use, because they're shorter and have that collar which tightens around the O.D. of the spindle nose. Nice, but defeats the quick-change nature of the system.

what mach one and snap change don't tell you is that you have to unlock the quill to change tools and then find your way back to where the Z axis was...unless you only use your bridgeport as a glorified drill press like they do in their videos.....and then you get raped on their special tooling. $30 to add a pull stud to an R-8 collet that isn't going to hold an endmill worth crap? $60 for one of their super duper tool holders?

when i really feel the need for the same type of quick changes i'll regrind my R-8 spindles to take BT30 tool holders, add drive dogs and cobble up a spring loaded drawbar with a bunch of belleville washers stacked on top of it.

main problem with the R-8 system is the lack of repeatable Z. tormach has a neat system but you have to use their tool holders that extend the tool out of the spindle more and sacrifice rigidity which is already a problem on the bridgeport. so i came up with my own system: i make up a short rod that sits inside the collet between the top of the endmill and the bottom of the drawbar. the end of the drawbar needs to be ground flat and some collets need "padding" inside to center the rod because both the business end and the drawbar end are much smaller than the middle section. a solution to this would be an extra long drawbar but this might be a hassle as not all cutter shanks are the same length. only problem i see with this system is that i'm sure the drawbar stretches quite a bit when tightened, never measured it but since i use an impact wrench to tighten it up it should pretty much stretch the same amount every time. close enough for what i do.

Meh....Most of this stuff is gimmicky crap, especially if you're not doing production. If you're trying to make money and have to do a lot of tools changes, some of this stuff makes sense for certain types of work.

I'm not a fan of anything that increases the spindle nose projection in order to save tool change time. I'll take rigidity and concentricity any day over saving a bit of time changing tools. On a light machine like a BP you should always be aiming for maximum rigidity in your set ups. Your parts will come out better and your tools will last longer if shit isn't sticking out 4 miles.

I've never seen anyone who can change tools faster than me except for the nazi freaks that trained me. Here are some things to speed up your tool change time.

1. Buy or make an extra long draw bar. You want it to stick out past the top a good six inches so you can put your palm on it and spin it like a son of a bitch. If your threads are in good shape, one or two palm swipes will spin the draw bar out. Same goes for putting a collet in.

2. Remove the key from the taper. Saves a lot of time putting the collet in because you don't have to hunt around to get it to line up. You don't need the stupid key 99.9% of the time. I've never spun a collet in the taper or had one loosen on its on.

3. To remove a collet.
A. Apply the break while grabbing your wrench
B. As soon as the spindle stops your wrench goes on.
C. Break on, wrench turns CCW
D. Break off, wrench turns CW
E. Break on, wrench turns CCW
F. Wrench comes off and then you smack the top of the draw bar with
shank of the wrench.
G. Wrench gets set down, left hand goes on collet, right hand spins the
draw bar out the rest of the way with palm swipe.

Forget about those hammer wrench combo things. They're too slow, heavy and unbalanced. If your draw bar is so tight you need a hammer, it's too tight. It takes a while to build up the aim and muscle memory to whack the top of the draw bar with the side of the wrench but it's well worth it once you get fast. You have to get good at the technique before it's the fastest.

an impact wrench (electric, not one of those anemic butterfly things) is quicker. if i hold it down with enough pressure it usually pops the collet right out, if not then i lift it an inch or so and smack it down. if i'm using real bridgeport collets they come right out without any pressure or smacking. and no need to brake the spindle at all, a bit of pressure against the collet nose is enough. tool changes are nearly as quick as shown in those videos except i never have unlock the quill, no matter where it's set a long extension on the impact wrench will get to the drawbar.

Does it bother anyone else that the MACH-1 folks were granted 3 patents on a springloaded drawbar for an R8 spindle? I mean, there are thousands of machines with the exact same drawbar design in shops around the world, and they convinced the USPTO to grant them a patent on something that has plenty of prior art. I don't buy the "but it's different because we use the quill to release it and a die spring instead of bellville springs", or "but it uses a kaneuter valve!".

John Welden said:

1. Buy or make an extra long draw bar. You want it to stick out past the top a good six inches so you can put your palm on it and spin it like a son of a bitch. If your threads are in good shape, one or two palm swipes will spin the draw bar out. Same goes for putting a collet in.

2. Remove the key from the taper. Saves a lot of time putting the collet in because you don't have to hunt around to get it to line up. You don't need the stupid key 99.9% of the time. I've never spun a collet in the taper or had one loosen on its on.

3. To remove a collet.
A. Apply the break while grabbing your wrench
B. As soon as the spindle stops your wrench goes on.
C. Break on, wrench turns CCW
D. Break off, wrench turns CW
E. Break on, wrench turns CCW
F. Wrench comes off and then you smack the top of the draw bar with
shank of the wrench.
G. Wrench gets set down, left hand goes on collet, right hand spins the
draw bar out the rest of the way with palm swipe.

Forget about those hammer wrench combo things. They're too slow, heavy and unbalanced. If your draw bar is so tight you need a hammer, it's too tight. It takes a while to build up the aim and muscle memory to whack the top of the draw bar with the side of the wrench but it's well worth it once you get fast. You have to get good at the technique before it's the fastest.

Click to expand...

Have you been watching me??

Power drawbar , and a power feed on the knee are my favorites .
I gave up on the kurt automatic that is supposed to raise & lower the drawbar . It just never worked reliably . I use the Aussie manual plunge air ratchet .
My universal "fits all" knee feed , only took 12 hours of making custom adapters , but in the end , is well worth it . I can zip up or down and limit the need to extend the quill .
If this tiawan crap unit burns out I will spend the extra for a SERVO unit so I can have a power feed knee for the longer boring jobs .

I would love to have one of the vertical shaper heads . There are a few jobs that could have really used this unit .
Bob

I'm not even trying to compare my little CNC R8 mill to a "real" production machine, but it does pretty damn good for what it is. This isn't some hack-job conversion or even a benchtop model. This has a full enclosure, integrated cast iron stand, weighs 2000+lbs, and will hold 0.0004" tolerances all day long.

All I'm looking for is ways to improve my efficiency and production more...without gimmicks.

I purchased a MACH-1 system about ten years ago. I did the install myself…no problems then and the only time I’ve called MACH-1 was to order more tool holders. They have two styles of holders, one is an endmill holder and the other uses MACH-1’s R8 collets. The die spring drawbar is more than adequate. In other words your going to break a tool or reach typical Bridgeport rigidity limits before having tool retention problems. I also installed a Accurite Millpower 3axis CNC system on this mill and never have any issues with swapping tools and holding .0015 in Z. You do loose about .25 of Z travel. To change tools you simply raise the quill all the way up…the last .25 of travel will require lot of effort as your compressing the die spring…right hand raising the quill…left hand holding the tool….it doesn’t get any easier. I made a handful of pull studs for my boring head, large Jacobs’s chuck, right angle head and spindle speeder. This Bridgeport gets used every day and my guys love it…especially the quick change tooling.
Carl

My bridgeport came with a QC30 spindle. Its slick compared to messing with a draw bar. But i have oftern wondered how it effects rigidity compared to a R8 because it adds anouther 1" to the spindle bearings easly. I have never ran a R8 spindle in my life, plenty of bigger iso spindles though. Hence i cant compare. Tool change goes,

Stop spindle Break on
Hook wrench undo of qc nut,
Catch tool as it pops out and swap it for the next one,
Tighten with hook wrench
Break off spindle back on.

Whilst you don't have to mess with the quill, you do need a good 3-4" of clearance to get the tool out. Any QC30 tappers i make i omit the drawbar bit, that saves a good inch at tool changes.

Biggest disadvantage is tooling is twice the cost of R8, want something as simple as a new face mill, add £70 for a arbour! Hence theres a deffinate cost disadvatage. Qc30 whilst not obsolete ain't common and is a good %50 more the cost of cat 40 holders.