milling

[cardiffpat]

Hi, I'm new here & I have a Myford super 7 lathe that I have cleaned & adjusted. I was thinking of buying a Warco mini-mill but I am now wondering if I would be better off buying a second hand milling attachment for the lathe.
Can any forum members advise on the best type of milling atachment? .Thanks.

[SteveW]

Pat,

I came close to buying a milling attachment for my S7 but fortunately someone beat me to it. These things are a compromise and I think you can loose more than you gain. If you are very short of space then it is a way to go if you need to mill.

My first successful move towards milling on the lathe was to get a vertical slide. A very useful addition with a lot of uses. Mine was around 80 quid a few years back.

Generally, with milling on a lathe you'll quickly run out of room to clamp stuff and with travel on the vertical and cross slides.

So, if you have the room go for a separate milling engine. It also means you don't tie up work if one job stalls. If you go mill/drill you'll also get a spare drill press which in my case is an order of magnitude better than the rattley old Wicks/Chinese bench drill thing I've got.

Unless to spent a lot of money you have to get used to a little spring in the column of the more simple mills and in some case with the combined lathe/mill systems.

[Peter W.]

If you have the room, my opinion would be to buy a separate mill/drill i.e. a machine designed for the purpose.

Since getting a Warco Minor mill/drill I've never milled in the lathe.
Firstly, it usually takes longer to set up to mill in the lathe.
Secondly, end mills can 'pull out' of a normal chuck, you
really need a collett chuck, or a proper auto-lock.
Thirdly, the movement is quite restrictive, but is OK for small work.

Hope that helps,
Peter W.

[chameleonrob]

peterw said:

Secondly, end mills can 'pull out' of a normal chuck, you
really need a collett chuck, or a proper auto-lock.

end mills will pull out and probably won't cut on centre anyway, a couple of MT2 collatts in 6 and 10mm should do.

I have a vertical slide on my lathe as I have neither the money or room for a mill and if you have a significant amount of play or backlash (I have 20 thou in the cross slide) forget doing accurate work or getting a good surface finish. having said that there will always be some jobs that need to be milled in the lathe as it can cut on much bigger radius, when making my cylinders I had to fly-cut a 35mm radius in a 70 x 70 x40mm block of steel....

[wayne]

if you want the myford milling atatchment they appear on ebay from time to time, my preferance is for a seperate virtical milling machine, for ease of seting up and the grater capacity it offers.
second hand units do come up ocasionaly, i purchsed my dore westbury virtical milling machine comleate with rotary table, dore boring head and clare auto lock chuck for £80.00

[Chris Kelland]

Hi Cardiffpat,

I have a Warco 918 lathe which I am happy with. I was going to do my limited amount of milling with it. I then decided to buy a small mill/drill and looked at Warco again. I was advised to steer clear of round column machines and so I bought a WM-16, I have got on with it very well, being a dovetail machine I do not loose register at all with the work. I have fitted digi readouts and I am very pleased with the whole setup.

Chris.