Finally got the milling machine home.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Journeyman on 13/03/2020 15:59:33:

Posted by JasonB on 13/03/2020 13:27:08:

… Funny enough I was watching a Hass video last night and they said that on average a keyless chuck was at least twice as accurate as a keyed one with regards to runout assuming similar quality chucks which may determine which one is best to use on the mill.

Slight drawback with keyless chuck is that you can't use them to hold taps as they come loose when you back the tap up! For everything else they are great and muck easier than the keyed variety.

John

 

I suppose it depends on what size you are tapping, Steve has said light work so I would say M10 would be towards the top end of that, bit of gummy 16mm square hot rolled, 8.5mm hole and I did not get a problem with the chuck coming undone.

 

Steve. I would not try this on your TS, at least until you are used to it and have worked out a way to quickly stop it before the tap goes too far.

Edited By JasonB on 13/03/2020 19:40:48

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

That disproves my theory, although I have only ever tried it using ordinary taps where it is one turn forward and half a turn back.

John

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Old mart,

Why do you recommend ER25 rather than ER32? Only about 6mm difference in height loss. The ER32 is of larger diameter but will hold up to 20mm easily. I’ve opted for ER16, in addition to the ER32 I bought originally, for smaller less accessible jobs (particularly on the Raglan). The Tom Senior should easily cope with 16mm cutters and larger on occasions.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Well guys I would like to thank all of you for the comments & input you have given. I actually thought I would have got a lot of negative sort of comments because of the age of the machine.

Some answers etc back. I got the parts with the machine that is in the photo.

To lift the head on , I was lucky to have the Brother in law with me, to put it all together. Although he is 70, he is as strong as an Ox. We lifted it halfway & sat it on a work platform. Then we stood on a platform ourselves & did the last bit. Even with 2 of us it was heavy. The whole machine in bits was heavy , especially lifting it out of the back of my van.

That lift that KWIL has made looks good. Good idea.

Cutting toolholders down using the milling machine is something I am looking forward to doing. I have cut 5 down in the lathe so far & what a pain doing interrupted cuts in the 4 jaw chuck. Bang Bang  Bang  poor bearings. 

Not sure on the year of it but it is Metric.

Also see pic of the chuck & the Clarkson. Are these MT2 tapers interference fit, so with heat they would come out. Or do I not need a drawbar for a chuck. I have plenty of drifts to release it. Was just not sure whether they had to have a drawbar on a milling machine.

Point taken about ball screw mod. Apparently, as I have had a P.M from a member there are some feed screw nuts available, so shall look into it. If I have forgot anything from 1st page I will answer those. I had started this text without checking the 1st page & not possible to go back without losing what I had written.

The M-Dro fitted seems very good. I got all the manuals with it & was quite amazed at the functions that are built in. Especially the bit about being able to program the drilling of an array or diagonal. I thought it was just a digital readout unit.

Steve.

Once again thanks all. I am sure I will be asking lots of questions about various tooling, how much to cut , how fast etc.

Edited By Steviegtr on 13/03/2020 20:03:41

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

JasonB I just watched the short video using the ARC sieg mill for tapping. That is a good feature of those machines. Unfortunately my machine cannot do that function. I cannot even do a quick reverse. The inverter is wired through 2 relays so has to be stopped before reverse can be started.

Steve.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

A reply to your posting:

Heat should make no difference to an interference fit unless the coefficients of expansion of the male and female are sufficiently divergent – they would expand or contract at the same rate with temperature change if of the same material.

The sum of the bits would be identical to the weight of the whole machine, so unless you attempted to lift all the bits at the same time, each component bit would be very much less. When I had dismantled my Centec, I moved it, lifted it and rebuilt it all by myself. A similar total weight to the Tom Senior.

Copying what you have already keyed in, to somewhere, avoids losing it (probably). Alternatively, opening the forum in a different tab can be advantageous and avoids changing pages on your keyed-in reply.

All ‘full DROs’ have many extra features way above and beyond the simple separate axis positional readouts. Even the Chinese offerings at around, or less than, £200 have all those features.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Mt2 is a very small and flexible tooling size for milling. That is why I converted the same model of machine to R8. If it couldn't have been done, the mill would certainly have been done up and sold rather than kept for the museum. There was no way we would have downgraded the size of all three axes as well as the spindle capacity from the existing drill mill.

[ianjParticipant @ians]

Steve.

I have sent you a PM

Ian

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Just for anyone who needs new NUTS here is a link to a gut on ebay that seems to do a few. Not cheap though.

NUTS  . Just had another look. It says E-Type model. I take it that is a different model to a Junior. 

Steve.

Edited By Steviegtr on 13/03/2020 20:33:00

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Posted by old mart on 13/03/2020 20:12:47:

Mt2 is a very small and flexible tooling size for milling. That is why I converted the same model of machine to R8. If it couldn't have been done, the mill would certainly have been done up and sold rather than kept for the museum. There was no way we would have downgraded the size of all three axes as well as the spindle capacity from the existing drill mill.

Hi old mart. I just read your post. Just a bit confused about what you put. 1st bit I think you converted a Tom Senior junior quill to be R8. 2nd bit about reduced travel. ????

Also is it an easy conversion. I assume you made a Quill. Cheers.

steve.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

We were left the Tom Senior Light Vertical, a floor standing drilling machine and an Atlas 12 X 24 lathe in a will last year. We already have a Taiwanese drill mill which has larger capacity than the TS and runs R8 tooling. We already have a Smart & Brown model A lathe and at the moment, the Atlas is being done up to sell.

Having already got milling and turning facilities, it was not difficult to convert the TS to R8. The existing quill now has an outrigger extension housing the larger lower taper roller bearing required to use the larger spindle. The lower half of the spindle was bought from ARC as a spare part for one of the Seig mills they sell. The only drawback of the conversion is the loss of 1 1/2" in total Z height.

The details and pictures are on this forum under Tom Senior, along with lots of other useful threads on the subject of TS.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

old mart thanks for that. I will have a look.

Steve.

[thaiguzziParticipant @thaiguzzi]

Nothing wrong with MT2 in a vertical head.

Maybe in horizontal sure.

Possibly why TS had INT30 in the horizontal and MT2 in the vertical in the majority of his machines, early M1's being MT3 in the horizontal, but always MT2 in the vertical.

I like MT2, use it in the mill, the HV 6" Vertex Rotab,the lathe headstock and tailstock, the T&CG, cuts down on different tooling taper requirements.

As some may know, i use my machines a lot, and don't baby any of them, i have never had a MT2 milling cutter holder come loose, and never had one come stuck in the quill feed TS head. Just common sense needed.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Steviegtr on 13/03/2020 19:54:09:

… thank all of you for the comments & input you have given. I actually thought I would have got a lot of negative sort of comments because of the age of the machine.

…

Steve.

teviegtr on 13/03/2020 20:03:41

Age alone isn't a major concern with these machines. Apart from the electrics, which might contain perished rubber, there isn't much to go wrong provided the machine has been maintained or stored carefully. Deadly enemies of old machines are rust, accidents, careless owners, and decades of hard work.

Older ex-hobby machines often come from good homes – well looked after, and lightly used. But it's not guaranteed!!!

We're living in second-hand paradise so far as ex-industrial and ex-educational machines are concerned. Back in the day industrial machines were often flogged Beyond Economic Repair. Similarly school or college lathes were very likely to have been used and abused, and also had to be approached with extreme caution. Good examples were expensive and it was easy to get stung.

Then CNC changed everything: since about 1970 large numbers of manual machines were progressively dumped by industry. Many of them are in good condition and sell at attractive prices, far cheaper than when new. As the need to teach manual techniques dropped in line with the rise of CNC, many schools and colleges ended up owning lightly used and well-maintained manual machines that they too eventually sold. There's a good chance these also will be in good order. But it's not guaranteed! I'd say inspection is essential, not least because spare parts are still full-price. Bit of a shock when it turns out a set of new bearings costs more than that bargain lathe!

Unfortunately age, asking price, and brand are all poor indicators of a particular machine's desirability compared with it's all important history. Compare a 1947 machine found as new in it's original packing with the same model made in 1987 that's been worked hard, used as an anvil out-back, and then dropped on arrival at the scrap-yard. Someone asking big money for a machine could be selling a gem or hoping to hook a sucker.

All this makes buying second-hand a bit of a game. Age alone wouldn't put me off – it's only relevant in that the machine has more time for a nasty experience. But don't forget many a brand-new machine has been written-off by careless fork-lift drivers!

I'd want to cut metal on any machine I was interested in before buying it. I like to look the seller in the eye and ask a few intelligent questions too. But I'm risk averse.

If they're in reasonable condition, a Super 7 and Tom Senior are an excellent combination for hobby-scale work. My only reservation is both are a little smaller than ideal for me, but to be honest I rarely use the full-capacity of my machines. Much depends on what the machines are for…

Dave

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Dave,

You say"as the need to teach manual techniques dropped in line with the rise of CNC, many schools and colleges ended up owning lightly used and well-maintained manual machines that they too eventually sold"

I recently viewed a you tube video on Hermle, a German high end 5 axis CNC machine manufacturer. Their training schools starts the apprentices on manual lathes and mills to teach them the fundamentals.

Maybe educational schools are droping manuals but at an apprenticeship level it is still considered necessary.

Edited By KWIL on 14/03/2020 11:18:16

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

I also watched that video. They take the apprentices through every aspect of the industry. I thought it was very good. It's shame there is not much of that kind of industry here anymore. I live in Leeds & the full length of Hunslet road was a mass of various engineering companies & printing. All gone.

Steve.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I looked at the link for the guy manufacturing leadscrew nuts, and I don't think he has any suitable for the L V. I made two X axis nuts out of leaded gunmetal, but it was not straightforward. The leadscrew is 3/4 X 5 acme RH, too small to pass laydown inserted tooling. I bought a tap from Tracey tools and did not think I could produce the thread just using it as the torque required was likely to break the tap. I used a cut down tool with an 8 TPI acme form running at the 5 TPI to produce a partially finished thread. The tap finished it. As cut, the nut had some backlash, but my modification was to use two nuts and extend the leadscrew thread and also even out the wear in the leadscrew threads. My backlash is much improved. As long as your nut still has some threads, you can rely on the DRO for travel. Just remember that climb milling with lots of backlash is not recommended. I could make you a nut if you supplied the bronze, but the backlash would depend on the leadscrew condition. Or I could lend you the tap, which might work if the core diameter of the thread was increased by about 0.010".

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Thanks for that old mart. Today I have read your article / thread on the mods you did. On my X axis the lash is .6mm on the Y it is just under 1.5mm So not ideal but with the DRO , not really a problem. I am hopefully going to have a go at milling down the base of a Q/C toolholder by 4mm on Sunday so will see how I go. Was going to try 0.5mm 1st to see how hard the steel is. The others I did in the lathe were murder. 1st few I did with HSS but then I got tips for the toolholders I had & it was not as bad. I even did one with a brazed tipped tool, which I guess would have been carbide.???. Are these cutters any good as it's all I have for now. Regards

Steve.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

We were lucky with the Y axis backlash, it was acceptable without any work, just as well as they are LH threads.

I notice that you have a Clarkson Autolock for the mill. To compensate for the flexible MT2, there is a threaded collar, LH, I believe, which is snugged up AFTER the drawbar is tightened. It stiffens the assembly considerably. Be careful not to get imperial and metric threaded cutters mixed up, if the size of the cutter is fractions of an inch, never use a metric collet with it and vise versa. If you are not conversant with using the Autolock, just google Clarkson Autolock instructions.

The cutters will do for a start, keep an eye out on ebay for resharpened solid carbide, up to about 12mm, don't touch them down on steel unless they are rotating or they will chip, and don't drop them ever, and always store them in a tube. 

Edited By old mart on 14/03/2020 20:53:16

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

This drawing from the Denford Forums shows the TS head and it is obvious why an extension screwed into the bottom of the quill to hold a larger taper roller bearing is necessary if converting to R8.

**LINK**

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Posted by old mart on 14/03/2020 20:44:06:….

I notice that you have a Clarkson Autolock for the mill. ………..

Edited By old mart on 14/03/2020 20:53:16

It looks to me like Steve has a Clarkson S type chuck.
My MT2 one doesn't have the extra left hand threaded collar.

Also it's not suitable for plain shanked cutters, requiring threaded ones of the Clarkson style.

The C type (still a Clarkson Autolock) has a separate collar into which the collet fits, and also has the left hand nut at the top.
Mine works fine with plain shanked cutters, as the extra internal collar closes the tines of the collet.

On the S type, the cutter's shank needs to project backwards through the threaded portion and engage on the pointed centre to shove the collet forwards far enough for the nut to close it.

The C type has two little pegs on the back of each collet to drive it, whereas Steve's S type has two flats.

The similar Titanic, has a half cutout on the rear to provide the drive, but again, can't cope with plain cutters.

Fortunately, it looks like Steve also has some ER collets so he can use plain cutters OK; all carbide cutters I've seen have had plain shanks.

Bill

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Maybe in horizontal sure.

I don’t worry about that on my Centec. Thinking is that vertical (plunge) cutting with a vertical mill is one thing but sideways milling can exert as much, or more, side thrust on a 2MT spindle than when used in horizontal – as the horizontal arbor is supported at both ends. Bearing sizes are likely the most important factor? It is only used as a hobby machine, so I don’t (need to) over-stress it.

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Thanks old mart but I don't think I am that brave. will take on board all you have said.

Steve.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

You can hold threaded shank cutters in an er collet as long as the threaded section does not interfere with the clamping length.

As I mentioned, having already got machinery big enough to do the mod on the spindle is essential. I spent much more time than usual setting things up to run perfectly before cutting any metal and have been rewarded by having a sweet running r8 spindle in the TS.

One mod still to be done is to have a quick change knee handle like a Bridgeport to supplement the wheel. With heavy tooling on the bed, the weight makes lifting the knee very difficult with my arthritis.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

If I didn't already have a large number of carbide endmills, I would be tempted to buy these, great value and not at all bad:

**LINK**

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