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Wanted: Smallish Horizontal Milling Machine

Degull

Aluminum
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Location
Toronto Canada
Looking for a smallish horizontal milling machine like a Diamond M22, M24, Rotax, Atlas, Benchmaster, Nichols etc. Located in Toronto Canada but I'm willing to travel for the right machine. Thanks.

Fernando
 
Looking for a smallish horizontal milling machine like a Diamond M22, M24, Rotax, Atlas, Benchmaster, Nichols etc. Located in Toronto Canada but I'm willing to travel for the right machine. Thanks.

Fernando
Sound more "tinyish" than small...
 
BSG -- Please contact me about your Sheldon Mill. I have tried responding twice to your private message but for some you are not getting my email. degull at gmail dot com.
 
Looking for a smallish horizontal milling machine like a Diamond M22, M24, Rotax, Atlas, Benchmaster, Nichols etc. Located in Toronto Canada but I'm willing to travel for the right machine. Thanks.

Fernando

Grapefruit to blueberry range in that list. The Nichols and the similar (but serious scarce) sliding-head Diamonds are "real" general-purpose light mills, the others mere benchmasturbatory toys that need nearly the same floorspace for way less capability.

If you can lay hands on that Sheldon or one of the later Burke/USMT "modern" horizontals, not the tiny nineteen-ought-three #4 / B-100-4, you have a genuine mill, not a paperweight.

You work is small? Yah, that happens. But when did your HANDS and con-trols shrink to miniature size? Just how much clever clamping, vise(s), or fixturing can one cram onto a Burke #4's 13" one tee-slot table, or the smaller-yet Barker's anyway? DAMHIKT, either!

:)

Minimum taper is #9 BS, no longer easy to find, but do-able. Dirt-common 40-taper is FAR better. Horizontals have more balls than BirdPorts twice their physical size, and need that greater grip. Cheaper goods, and massive variety, too, BTW, 40-taper are.

That'll help "shorten" yer list 'coz most anything else is a bad joke and harder yet to find USEFUL goods that suit when the task is milling, not drilling. EG: Fuggabuncha "MT", R8, or other small collet-noses that struggle even on an honest vertical mill.

3CW
 
I am going to be notching bicycle tubes with it. The mill is going to be dedicated to one function for now. I have seen others get away with using the smaller bench top models.
I'll take your advise and try to find something more in the general purpose mill category like a Nichols or the Sheldon. Most importantly I need a mill that will take up as little floor space as possible and not cost a million bucks. I would prefer to find a small mill that uses 40 taper since I own 40 tooling already. The Nichols mill would be ideal but I haven't come across a tool room model with all the handles.
 
I am going to be notching bicycle tubes with it. The mill is going to be dedicated to one function for now. I have seen others get away with using the smaller bench top models.
I'll take your advise and try to find something more in the general purpose mill category like a Nichols or the Sheldon. Most importantly I need a mill that will take up as little floor space as possible and not cost a million bucks. I would prefer to find a small mill that uses 40 taper since I own 40 tooling already. The Nichols mill would be ideal but I haven't come across a tool room model with all the handles.

The tiny Barkers are good for that sort of work if you need multiple thousands, but for fewsies you don't even need a "mill" for notching thinwall tubing.

Either:

- put a "pilot" bearing into a fixture that guides and feeds the tubing that you can clamp onto a drillpress table to stabilize a cutter and notch away.

Or:

- modify a hand power tool for a "vise tooling" fixture that specific purpose, toss it in the drawer between uses.

Thinwall tubing work is dirt-common. I'd probably shear it, rather than mill it, with an arbor-press, foot-press, or air press fixture meself.

Should be stock goods already in the market for that. Not the first time anyone had the need.
 
The atlas, benchmaster, diamond and smaller burke / us machine co mills are too small for your purpose, as is the standard sized barker PM. At a minimum, you’ll need a sheldon, hardinge TM/UM, or the large Barker Mill. These will limit you to one fixture on the table at a time, but will get the job done well with a few workarounds.

With the larger sheldons, a nichols or a clausing horizontal 8540, and some creative fixturing (often drilling and tapping the table) you can shoehorn two fixtures in there. These only have a single t-slot, hence drilling and tapping. Nichols did make one with a larger table and a few slots, but kind of rare. Also a lot of nichols mills are 30 taper, though they did make some smaller amount of 40 taper.

Since you are looking for a dedicated machine, you don’t need a full toolroom model with micrometer handwheels on every axis. Your head/spindle will be pinned to one location (tube centerline), and your table X will be pinned to one location (center point of your cutting fixture), so all you really need is movement in the Y. Handwheel is nice, pneumatic/hydro/power is best, and even a lever can work well.

Sure you can use a rong-fu or an atlas or whatever and kludge around taking an hour to get everything just right and make sure your seatstays clear the casting etc etc, but that is a terrible waste of time. Mitering a tube on a horizontal mill for a bike frame should take less than 5 minutes from when you start to mark your butts and cut lengths, that’s the whole point.

The smaller mills just won’t help you get there, and in fact are a downright pain in the ass.

Good luck in your search, check out HGR just around the lake from you. They have several horizontals which will suit your needs right now.
 
The atlas, benchmaster, diamond and smaller burke / us machine co mills are too small for your purpose, as is the standard sized barker PM. At a minimum, you’ll need a sheldon, hardinge TM/UM, or the large Barker Mill. These will limit you to one fixture on the table at a time, but will get the job done well with a few workarounds.

With the larger sheldons, a nichols or a clausing horizontal 8540, and some creative fixturing (often drilling and tapping the table) you can shoehorn two fixtures in there. These only have a single t-slot, hence drilling and tapping. Nichols did make one with a larger table and a few slots, but kind of rare. Also a lot of nichols mills are 30 taper, though they did make some smaller amount of 40 taper.

Since you are looking for a dedicated machine, you don’t need a full toolroom model with micrometer handwheels on every axis. Your head/spindle will be pinned to one location (tube centerline), and your table X will be pinned to one location (center point of your cutting fixture), so all you really need is movement in the Y. Handwheel is nice, pneumatic/hydro/power is best, and even a lever can work well.

Good luck in your search, check out HGR just around the lake from you. They have several horizontals which will suit your needs right now.

HGR has a Nichols horizontal with what looks like air driven axis:

Used Nichols Horizontal Mill | HGR Industrial Surplus


Can I tear all the air drive stuff off and crank it manually? I don’t need the micrometer dials (what I want and what I need is the hard question).
 
I, too have a Sheldon/Vernon horizontal for sale. It was professionally rescraped then used very little in my shop. PM me if BSG's doesn't work out. I am near Kalamazoo, MI.

Jim
 
I, too have a Sheldon/Vernon horizontal for sale. It was professionally rescraped then used very little in my shop. PM me if BSG's doesn't work out. I am near Kalamazoo, MI.

Jim

For some reason I can’t reply to my private messages. Email me at degull1 at gmail dotcom
 
I ended up buying a Nichols Horizontal Mill. It is missing a hand wheel where an electric power feed was installed. I'm hoping I can get rid of the electric feed and install a manual hand wheel.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NICHOLS-MI...021412?hash=item3f944d1d64:g:c5UAAOSw~T9ahb8a

I appreciate all the suggestions and the help. Thanks everyone!!

Fernando

There is no "hoping". There is only do or not do.

:)

That should not be hard, so long as the screw is still there. Handwheels are commodity items. Lots of machine-tool builders just BOUGHT theirs anyway, same as auto makers buy drums, rotors, bearings, wheels and tires - and everything ELSE they can - rather than make their own.

You "may" be better-served with a rack, pinion, and hand LEVER, actually. Or even adapting the electric drive to your work?
 








 
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