New Mill

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

I've just taken delivery of a new milling machine, a Cormak ZX7045. The same machine, more or less, seems to be available from many different suppliers. I chose this particular one because price was good and reviews of the machine and UK supplier were also good. Was also looking for a machine with a larger workspace than my existing mill (Herbert 0V) but not too big a footprint.

Anyone know of any problems with these machines, useful modifications and improvements?

John

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

A very nice machine, the MT4 tooling is not as common as R8, but there are shell mill arbors, er32 collets and boring heads in this size on ebay and no doubt other sites.

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Surprised at the lack of comments, especially as this type/style of machine seems to be quite popular and available from most of the major ME tooling suppliers.

My first milling machine was the ubiquitous Taiwanese mill/drill, bought in the late 1970's. The very poor reputation hadn't been established at that point, fortunately I seemed to have got away with it. A couple of faults easily rectified, this machine gave me some 20 years of good service.

After that my experience of far-eastern machine tools was helping others sort out problems, repair and improve there machines. Most of the problems were due to poor design and inaccurate manufacture. They still seem to suffer the same poor detail design as they always did. Fundamentally, these machines, in general, seem to me to be okay, a good starting point to build up a useful machine.

That last point is why I started this thread, surely there are those here that have done work on there mills of this style to adress problems and improve?

I've looked on Youtube, lots there. One channel runs in to several hours of viewing but doesn't really address any problems, apart from a few obvious. I thought it would be useful for guidance on dismantling, unfortunately no. Also some rather dubious advice and techniques shown.

Interesting video on a powered quill feed, will revisit that on in the future.

So, anyone?

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

If you had said which other machines it is similar to, such as the Chester Super Lux, you may have got more responses. You have not mentioned if it is fitted with a powered X axis drive or a DRO, both of which make using a mill much easier. A more powerful mill with larger table travel requires a lot of hand cranking and, if you are planning to use multi-insert facing mills, a lot of fast cranking. The longer travel also makes losing count of revolutions of a handwheel a greater possibility.

I suggest, from experience of one of these we had at work, that the chuck guard will get broken off quite early on and will rapidly become disused due to the cost of repeatedly replacing bits of it. I also had to buy better knobs for the gear change as the ones supplied were not robust enough for use in an industrial department. I also think we replaced some of the ball knobs on the end of the arms for lowering the quill. I think one rattled loose and fell on the ball which was enough to crack it. We only used it for drilling gland plates for junction boxes using mainly annular cutters and a few step drills for plastic boxes.

Martin C

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I think that you could buy or make an MT4 adapter that would take R8 tooling – just a shell with MT4 outside and suitable taper and parallel portion bored and a simple pin as a key. R8 tooling is very common for larger mills. I think it's also possible to make at least a shortened MT4 "plug" that will take a BT30 / ISO30 taper – again a very common style with lots of tooling available.

I have a VMB with R8 spindle and mainly use R8 collets which are cheap and grip extremely well. You might even consider making a, adapted sleeve and loctite it in place! Though as it's an MT4 taper anyway it will probably lock itself soon enough!

I also looked at making an adapter so I could fit a BT30 taper into the MT4 spindle on the S7 to make a short ER16 collet chuck – as I recall it looked quite feasible hence my suggestion.

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Looks like a simpler version of my Axminster SX4 at first glance.
I've had the SX4 for a couple of years now and generally I'm am pleased with it after Axminster got their act todether and replaced the first one I had and sorted the second one out. I tend to do larger stuff so the usual choice on here from Arceuro wasn't big enough, maybe that's why you didn't get much response…

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Here's a blank end R8 arbor resting in the mouth of the taper on my big-bore S7. There would be plenty of room to make a sleeve though it would have to project perhaps 10mm beyond the outer end of the MT4 taper.

Here holding a BT30 taper in the mouth – again with a bit of projection on the sleeve there's plenty of room.

With an R8 adapter you could fit collets straight in which are great for holding and consume minimal daylight under the mill head. For BT30 you can get a wide range of collet chucks (this one is ER16), and even direct-fit BT30 finger collets. However MT4 collets are like hen's teeth.

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

Well the Cormak ZX7045 is the common Far Eastern six speed geared head mill that has been around for years, with versions of it sold in the UK by Warco, Chester and others. Some other similar versions come with a powered quill feed.

Generally they are fairly well made, but dirty and grimy assembly of the internals of some of these relatively low cost Chinese geared head mills, and lathes, is not uncommon. This is not a criticism, it's just the way they are.

Taf_Pembs on this forum has done an interesting thread on a comprehensive strip, improvement and rebuild of his similar Chester Superlux mill. Not only the head, but the whole machine, so well worth a look.

Jon's Workshop on YouTube has also done a strip and rebuild of his Cormak ZX7045 gear head mill.

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Lathejack, do you have a link to Taf_Pembs thread?

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

I don't have a link, but if you type "Chester Super Lux advice" into the search box above it should take you there, it worked when I just tried it.

It is a recent thread, started about early November 2022.

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Lathejack, thanks for the hint, didn't work for me but google found it!

I've read through Taf's description, some good stuff. The one thing I will (strongly) disagree with is the use of epoxy to true-up the vertical column. In terms of rigidity (and therefore accuracy), metal to metal joint is absolutely essential. Introducing epoxy, shims or jacking screws isn't going to do much for rigidtiy. The column needs to be remachined. In Tafs case I see he has a largish lathe (Colchester Triumph?), how about clamping the column to the cross-slide and fly cutting its base?

My first checks of accuracy with my machine suggest the column is vertical so, hopefully won't need to do this.

Is Taf still out there? Would like to know how his rebuild if going

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