Drilling on VMC Mill

[VicParticipant @vic]

Not as good as my old Omnimill but the rotating head on my VMC comes in really handy at times when you need to put a hole in the end of a long item. Apologies in advance for those distressed by the sight of the brown stuff (wood) being attacked on a milling machine. 🤣

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Perfectly acceptable technique, I’ve done it a few times over the years.

Tony

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes, that’s a perfectly viable and common method for end-machining long items.

 

The problem with bio-metal is not the milling and drilling.

The problem is cleaning all the powdery swarf out afterwards! It is not good for the machine.

 

Though I have seen worse: a Bridgeport turret-mill and a big Dean, Smith & Grace lathe not actually in use on my visit but obviously used for machining architectural components….. in sandstone.

[Dave SParticipant @daves59043]

I used mine to full depth cut a 30mm diameter channel to seat an air rifle action in a custom walnut stock.

power feed and proper clamping made it way less sketchy than it would have been with my router.

Dave

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I have used the 12 x 24 Atlas lathe to turn a length of wood which was too long for the S & B model A. And a mill makes precision drilling of wood much easier than a pillar drill.

I took advantage of the round column mill being able to swing its head to true up one of the tee slots rear faces which had one end 0.007″ in error. Fortunately most of the length only needed about 0.002″ skimmed and about 1/4 of the length had 0.009″. And I managed the whole 500mm length in three stages. The reason was to accomodate a matched pair of vises with keys so that they could be spaced out for long work. I never did check out the other three slots. The mill is made in Taiwan, so it must have been an off day.

[Author]

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