Not sure why I addressed you as Richard, but thankyou for the compliment!

"….faster feed rate for the main screw…" on the lathe.

I am not sure what you mean, and I am not familiar with the Emco lathes, but I take it the 'main screw' is what is actually called the 'lead screw', on all lathes. If so, is the faster feed rate actually a setting for screw-cutting, albeit of a fine-pitch screw?

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Do you have the operating-manual for the lathe? If not I suggest you try to obtain one, either new if that's still possible, or most likely from the lathes.co web-site many of us use as our main reference for machine-tools. If you can see it under Google's appalling graffiti-by-adverts. The proprietor, Tony Griffiths, sells many machine-tool manuals, though not very cheaply, and lists the parts and operating manuals for your lathe and milling-machine in his sections describing them. They might be photocopies rather than original but still worth it, and I have bought from him those for some of my machines.

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Amplifying Huub's point about speeds and feeds, many of those published are for optimum production rates in industrial conditions using larger and beefier machines than those normally found in model-engineering.

I'd avoid using carbide insert tooling until you've built up your skills a bit. They are expensive and cannot be re-sharpened, and sometimes the cheaper and re-sharpenable HSS tooling will also give a better finish. I do use insert tooling, but by no means exclusively. Many aver inserts have to be worked at very high speeds: yes they can be because are designed to run very fast on appropriate factory machines; but I have not found them a problem at modest speeds. Even so, they are by no means as simple as they seem.

Mouse

It's a truism that model engineer and home shop machinery is frequently required to handle jobs that objectively are too large for the machine. Something that needs to be born in mind when selecting work holding and tooling. Most important when considering a milling machine because everything goes inside the work envelope

Before finally purchasing tooling and work holding for your mill it's worth doing some drawings to see how much space the various options leave you. Many folk buy a vice with a rotating base and habitually leave the rotary base off to get an inch or so extra clearance under the head.

For example by small machine standards a 1/2" or 12.5 mm drill and chuck is a very long assembly hanging below the head. Its a right pain if you have to pull everything off, remove the base from the vice and put it all back to get that 1/4'' or 6 mm clearance the drill needs to get into the right position. All users of small machines doing small jobs should seriously consider investing in sub drills. Seem excessive to pay for 4", 100 mm, of drilling depth capability when your thickest job is only ever going to be 1/2", 12.5 mm. Endless other examples in the same vein.

Vertical clearance is the obvious one but side and longitudinal clearance can also be important.

Looking at the ArcEurotrade website **LINK**

https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Workholding/Machine-Vices

The two, readily available new, vice styles of interest for general use are the ordinary screw operated ones and what Arc call the precision vice type 2.

The screw operated ones have less opening for any given jaw width and body size than the precision ones because the moving jaw base needs to be quite long for accurate movement and stability.

The precision type is tightened by an angled socket head screw pulling the moving jaw forwards and downwards making it very stable at the cost of limited travel. So the nut underneath has to be arranges so it can take up a number of positions giving coarse adjustment. Which is not only less convenient than a single long screw but also frustrating when you set them coarse position wrong and have to move the nut before the vice will tighten up.

The precision vices are expensive due to being well made and ground all over so they can be used turned on their side if need be. Affordability is a relatively recent thing. Back in the day such were purely industrial market devices and priced accordingly as the modular vices originally designed for CNC work still are. Although import prices are creeping down into merely painful territory.

The shallowest, relatively findable, type of vice is the industrial style originally introduced by Taylor having a free sliding moveable jaw clamped by a screw in a sort of Y shaped assembly engaging with rack teeth on the top of the vice base. Strong and durable but now seriously obsolete for industrial use they often appear on E-Bay, Facebook et al for reasonable money. The primary installation disadvantage being jaws much narrower than the base.

As ever it's a matter of making a, hopefully informed, decision to pick the best compromise of advantages and disadvantage that can reasonably be afforded. Many folk have found that a smaller, more affordable vice, supplemented by clamps and sacrificial plates to hold oversize work directly on the mill table to be an effective compromise. Disciplined use of the travel stops being important to preserve the table top surface.

The two piece endless vices, whether bought or shop made, can be an effective way of holding oversize jobs too. Tend to be too expensive or need too much work to make unless you really need them tho'.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 11/06/2023 17:43:04

You do need to rock the Emcomat8.4 lead screw handwheel back and forth as you push and pull the speed selector to make the gears line up, if you don't do that you may not be fully engaging the gear. I used to have an 8.6

The versatile vices on ARC's site can actually hold larger items than the precision type by reconfiguring the jaw positions, the FB2 is unlikely to be able to take large enough cuts to worry about the force pulling work out of the shallower gripping area so don't rule them out on size of opening, 80mm jaw width one would do on the FB2. Put the swivel base under the bench and make use of the premachined location slots for quick and easy set up of the vice

As for cutters to get started I would suggest 3-flute as they are good all rounders, say 6 & 10mm to get you going either ARC Premium or those done by APT in HSS to start with. If you are going to be doing a lot of work with aluminium and other non ferrous metals then worth getting the geometry specific ones again in HSS from ARC or APT but move upto carbide on these as soon as you have the hang of things in which case I would also go for the 3-flute option, you are never going to be removing the volume of material that the 2-flute ones allow with a 2000rpm top speed

As for a Chamfer cutter, these ones work OK and you can also use them as a spotting drill and small countersink, I would say 6mm to start with.

For surfacing at one time I would have said use a fly cutter but these days I think an indexable face/shell mill is the way to go BUT use it with inserts designed for aluminium/non ferrous on ALL metals as this puts a lot less strain on the smaller hobby machines. 40 or 50mm one of these and an arbor in MT2 size and this type of insert for all.

You don't say what if anything came with the machine to hold the cutters, don't use a drill chuck.

Edited By JasonB on 11/06/2023 19:15:14

Standard on Kurt vices, although thus far I've never needed to use the feature.

Andrew

Th versatile is really just a copy of the Kurt D series vice so every man and his dog who sells that has likely included the additional jaw positions. I've only measured for lift or lack of in the usual configuration but a syou say if they were not put together reasonably well there may be so lift.

0.025mm is approx 0.001"