horizontal milling

[garyParticipant @gary44937]

hi folks, can any member reccomend a good book on horizontal milling, i have a machine and loads of cutters but never used it in earnest finding the vertical mode more convenient.

[garyParticipant @gary44937]

[Anonymous]

You should be able to find a download for 'A Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines' by Cincinnati on the internet. I use my horizontal mill a lot. It's way more rigid and has a bigger motor than my vertical mill. Equals much faster metal removal rates and bigger cuts, like this 5DP gear cut in once pass per tooth:

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 22/05/2016 09:41:21

[garyParticipant @gary44937]

thanks andrew, thats just what i was looking for. impressed with your gear cutting! thanks

[steveteeParticipant @stevetee]

As some one who has done quite a bit of milling, I think Andrews picture shows one of the many applications that is much more easily done on a horizontal, rather than a vertical machine. This application 'could' be turned through 90 degrees, to do the job on a VM, but the arbor would be un supported at its end , unlike here.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

There are a few milling books that have been (re)-published by Lindsay Publications Gary. They are avaialble form Camden in the UK (or at least used to be).

"Running a Milling Machine" by Fred Colvin and "Milling Machine Kinks" by Colvin-Stanley are the two that I have on my bookshelf….but I also have various Caxton Press workshop technology 'sets' that cover the horizontal and its uses quite well too. As Andrew suggests – older enginering texts will often tend to cover these machines because they were in commopn use back then….

Going back to the Colvin books – the "Running" book has all the basic 'intro' information in it but also covers the Dividing Head fairly well (for the beginner to such things) and there's also a section on cutting Helices – which another thread here is exploring at the moment. The "Kinks" book is a kind of hints and tips book but it's worth remembering that although both of these books are written for the "practical men" – they are very much about industrial practice at that time (e.g. designed for people working in industry) – and my own requirements are generally less (shall we say) demanding… so they may not be what you are actually after or need

Of course if you can find these books as free downloads – then that's well worth doing as they are an interesting read and can potentially give you 'clues' as to how to appraoch certain things… I'm not on my normal PC at the moment but I do have a few other Fred Colvin books that I have downleaded in digital format. They are of their time (1930-40's) but often contain small 'nuggets' that you will not find elsewhere these days given that industry has moved on and certain machines (like horizontal mills and shapers) have never really found much favour for amateur use generally and little is written about them in places like ME/MEW

That's a pity really – as I have both horizontal mills and shapers and find them very useful machines…

Regards,

IanT

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Andrew, with such cuts do you have a jack or packing between the table and the gear close to the cut to take downward forces off the mounting to the RT ? Do you have power feed to raise the table ?

Emgee

[Anonymous]

Posted by Emgee on 22/05/2016 18:03:30:

Andrew, with such cuts do you have a jack or packing between the table and the gear close to the cut to take downward forces off the mounting to the RT ? Do you have power feed to raise the table ?

A very close look at the picture will show a support parallel and shims under the spoke nearest the cutter. There is still an overhang, but only a couple of inches. For scale the OD of the gear is 14.8". One of the reasons I cut in the horizontal plane is that it was too big to go under the cutter in the vertical plane. Another is that the setup as shown is more rigid than using a dividing head.

I don't have power feed on the vertical axis, so that's a lot of handle turning. To be precise 432 teeth, ie, 72 teeth times 6 gears, as I cut a couple of final drive gears for a mate at the same time. Each tooth was 12 turns up and 12 turns down. I could cut about 25-30 teeth before I had to sit down with a cup of tea.

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 22/05/2016 19:54:01

[garyParticipant @gary44937]

thanks for the info iant, very interesting.

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

Another good book is "A practical treatise on milling" by Brown and Sharpe (manufacturers of top quality milling machines) I bought mine from ABE books, try to get a copy published between 1940 and 1955 .I was apprenticed in the late 1950s and the one thing that was drummed into us was that the cutter guards must be in place at all times,the horizontal mill was regarded as just as dangerous as a power press . The cutters have no respect for fingers and hands and the nature of the cutters is to drag the operator into the cut and not let go and in those days the cutters were a long way from the power switch and clutch levers. Later machines did have better safety switches.

I also have the Cincinatti book,I regard the Brown and Sharpe as better, it shows far more machine set ups with high quality photos, avoid reprints as the all important photos are not very good..

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

There are several books on milling on the internet archive including the B&S one.

One advantage of horizontal in some cases is rigidity in general. A lot depends on what is being done.

Slab mills can give a pretty good finish and unlike milling flat surfaces with vertical arrangements can be flat. Big face cutters for instance may be tilted a little out square to the table which will give a dished surface. The accuracy of a slab miller purely depends on hoe well it was ground how parallel the arbour is to the table.

One thing I made during training was a V block which is a good example of their use. The V's were cut on each side by reversing the block in the vice so that way they were central and at the same angle. The basic block shape was made by machining a face and there after making sure that a machined face was firmly up against the fixed jaw and down in the vice. The ends were done in a similar way after setting up with a precision square. They are ideal for this sort of thing and checking it over with a 1/10 reading dti in various ways it didn't show any errors. Just the same as when it went away for hardening and was then ground.

Wish I still had it – no measurable error at all. Sub 1/10 accuracy in all respects I could measure.

Mentioning the fixed jaw brings to mind the vices that are arranged so that the moveable one presses down. For the sort of work outlined it really needs to float a little. Very little in practice. A mallet and 2 stage vice tightening is used to make sure it's down and it needs to be pretty tight at stage one. The V block stared as black bar.

John

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[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

Sometime ago I acquired a horizontal kit for my bridgeport clone. I have never used it for horizontal milling, although the right angle head came in jolly useful once. Does anyone else have one of these? Are they any good?

David.

[Anonymous]

Posted by David Colwill on 23/05/2016 19:26:58:

Sometime ago I acquired a horizontal kit for my bridgeport clone. I have never used it for horizontal milling, although the right angle head came in jolly useful once. Does anyone else have one of these? Are they any good?

Yes, I've got a Bridgeport one. I've used it once in full horizontal mode, for 'grooving' my rear wheel rims before rolling:

It has the advantage over the horizontal mill that the milling table is bigger, and the travels longer. That's useful when the work is a bit over 6 feet long. However, I wouldn't use it for serious horizontal milling, as rigidity is not one of its attributes and the Bridgeport is a bit underpowered.

Andrew

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Seem to recall John S also posting here last year about using his. Forget what he was doing at the time though. Some magical bodgery, no doubt!

Murray

[Author]

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