Best way to remember Mill movements when turning hand wheels

[norman valentineParticipant @normanvalentine78682]

On my milling machine the x axis moves away fronm the handle with a clockwise turn of the handle and the y axis is opposite. this caused me lots of problems when I first used it until I worked out what to do. The x axis is how you would expect it , for the y axis I just think of the tool as being the part that moves. Now I find that I have no problem deciding which way to turn the handles. Easy!

[Bodger BrianParticipant @bodgerbrian]

Posted by mechman48 on 17/09/2020 16:15:01:

If you remember the adage.. 'Righty tighty.. lefty loosey for nuts, screws etc;

I’ve never understood the logic of that, in that right & left are linear directions and clockwise & anti-clockwise are rotational. Try putting a spanner on a nut so that is vertically positioned below the nut, then push it to the right. What happens? On a conventional RH thread, it’ll loosen, the opposite result to what your adage suggests.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

The drill mill at the museum has handles at both ends of the X axis, so it depends which end you are standing at, (normally in the path of the least ammount of flying metal chips), and as soon as the Tom Senior was up and running, it had a second handle fitted at the left hand end.

[Author]

Posts