Archdale Milling Machine

[pressbrake1]

My jaws on the vice have a bit of bow in them. Made it a little difficult to tram the vice exactly. Its within about 0.2mm which is close enough to muck about with.

Need some parallels.
Dials on the handwheeks are better but still liable to slip a bit. Might keep an eye out for a DRO.

Need to sort the oil situation out. Still can’t see how the x or y is lubricated.

Time it right with msc and a set of parallels is less than the fuel cost of hardening a set!

 

[Brad93]

Time it right with msc and a set of parallels is less than the fuel cost of hardening a set!

Will keep an eye out. It’s Quantumike month next month

 

[slim_boy_fat]

We have made chips

Soon you'll be outdoing @doubleboost and his SNNCs

 

[Brad93]

Soon you'll be outdoing @doubleboost and his SNNCs

I don’t think so, got many years of learning till I’m at Johns level of ingenuity.

 

[Brad93]

Can anyone recommend a good quality facemill? Sandvik, Korloy or Iscar preferred.

And a 40INT arbor?

 

[Milkybars]

@Brad93 this isn't a cheap sport !!
What I would say is Sandvik are bit of a nightmare when it comes to tips (they tend to be there tips of the highway)
I'd look to trying to rationalise the tip choice (readily available) to something you can use in other holders.

What type of material are we talking ??
The arbor's are fairly cheap (cutwel and others)

 

[Hopefuldave]

The chinese face mills taking carbide inserts aren't expensive, and the ones I got from EvilBay are actually pretty decent so far... They need a 40-taper arbor to mount on, have either round or "rectangularish" (parallelogram?) inserts (Iskar or Sandvik if you're posh!), depending whether you need to cut up to a feature on the surface you're milling.

e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Face-Mil...973990?hash=item46b09fcf26:g:WtoAAOSwvfFe~DPm

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[addjunkie]

The chinese face mills taking carbide inserts aren't expensive, and the ones I got from EvilBay are actually pretty decent so far... They need a 40-taper arbor to mount on, have either round or "rectangularish" (parallelogram?) inserts (Iskar or Sandvik if you're posh!), depending whether you need to cut up to a feature on the surface you're milling.

e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Face-Mil...973990?hash=item46b09fcf26:g:WtoAAOSwvfFe~DPm

Dave H. (the other one)

I use something similar to those. For the price they work well. Tobehonest though its not that often whats done with a big expensive face cutter cant be done in a slower fashion with a far cheaper fly cutter.

 

[Agroshield]

Anyone know what much about this Clarkson holder? It says “Clarkson FC3 40INT

Yes. It is for FC3, so-called disposable, cutters. Either 1/4" or 6mm Weldon shank cutters. The idea is that they are small and not worth sharpening, so throw away once blunt. AFAIK only available in HSS, imperial or metric, and perhaps no bigger diameter than the shank. Need spindle speed to do them justice. Any Weldon shank tool of the correct shank dia. should fit.

FC3 nosepieces for standard Autolock chucks and FC3 adaptors for standard Clarkson collets (normally 16mm or 5/8") were also available.

On the face mill, the most common current insert is the AKPT 16 one. As Milkybars says, a lot of Sandvik stuff is proprietary so nothing else will fit. You can buy in many grades and geometries, from large tip radius for nasty stuff to sharper ones that are good on aluminium. You can buy holders in many diameters and insert numbers but one size of insert will fit all of them*. As Dave H. says, the overseas holders are OK if used with brand name inserts. ArcEurotrade is worth looking at or Seco as a brand name.

* be wary on the small dia. single insert ones. Below a certain dia., they change to AKPT 11 inserts.

 

[Brad93]

@Brad93 this isn't a cheap sport !!
What I would say is Sandvik are bit of a nightmare when it comes to tips (they tend to be there tips of the highway)
I'd look to trying to rationalise the tip choice (readily available) to something you can use in other holders.

What type of material are we talking ??
The arbor's are fairly cheap (cutwel and others)

The price isn’t an issue as I have a number of smaller sized anvils I could do with facing off, so I know I’m going to need a decent face mill and decent holders.

They’re not particularly hard, probably 30-40 rockwell.

 

[Brad93]

I use something similar to those. For the price they work well. Tobehonest though its not that often whats done with a big expensive face cutter cant be done in a slower fashion with a far cheaper fly cutter.

Would you use a HSS tool or a insert tool in the fly cutter?

 

[Brad93]

Yes. It is for FC3, so-called disposable, cutters. Either 1/4" or 6mm Weldon shank cutters. The idea is that they are small and not worth sharpening, so throw away once blunt. AFAIK only available in HSS, imperial or metric, and perhaps no bigger diameter than the shank. Need spindle speed to do them justice. Any Weldon shank tool of the correct shank dia. should fit.

FC3 nosepieces for standard Autolock chucks and FC3 adaptors for standard Clarkson collets (normally 16mm or 5/8") were also available.

On the face mill, the most common current insert is the AKPT 16 one. As Milkybars says, a lot of Sandvik stuff is proprietary so nothing else will fit. You can buy in many grades and geometries, from large tip radius for nasty stuff to sharper ones that are good on aluminium. You can buy holders in many diameters and insert numbers but one size of insert will fit all of them*. As Dave H. says, the overseas holders are OK if used with brand name inserts. ArcEurotrade is worth looking at or Seco as a brand name.

* be wary on the small dia. single insert ones. Below a certain dia., they change to AKPT 11 inserts.

great post thanks mate that’s explained a lot. I think I have quite a few of those cutters.

 

[stormin]

Would you use a HSS tool or a insert tool in the fly cutter?

Yes if you're fly cutting and don't want to have to sharpen or touch up every pass use carbide insert tooling, just make sure the geometry is correct.
Fly cutters are OK for a light skim, say a few thou off a cylinder head. If you want to remove real amounts of material and not take all day, ie make money, use a carbide insert facemill.

 

[Brad93]

Yes if you're fly cutting and don't want to have to sharpen or touch up every pass use carbide insert tooling, just make sure the geometry is correct.
Fly cutters are OK for a light skim, say a few thou off a cylinder head. If you want to remove real amounts of material and not take all day, ie make money, use a carbide insert facemill.

That was my thoughts exactly. Probably want to take 1/16” off the anvils.

 

[stormin]

That was my thoughts exactly. Probably want to take 1/16” off the anvils.

The machine you have will take that off and more in one pass with a 5 or 6 inch face mill no problem. What HP is the motor?

 

[Brad93]

The machine you have will take that off and more in one pass with a 5 or 6 inch face mill no problem. What HP is the motor?

I will have to look. It’s a geared Machine so tonnes of torque. It’s 2 or 3hp if I remember correctly

 

[Agroshield]

The machine you have will take that off and more in one pass with a 5 or 6 inch face mill no problem.

One small thing to be aware of in an older machine with a quill is wear in the drive splines. A facemill is quite hard on the machine in this area and it can rattle a bit and exacerbate the problem. There are pictures of people's solutions for this on Bridgeports (which hold the male and female splines together to eliminate the backlash), most using a simple spring. The use of a spring still allows the quill to be used. If the spring solution does not suit the machine, something else to load the splines together can be made but would stop use of the quill when it is installed or tightened up.

There was some discussion of it hidden in a thread on Model Engineer:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=123926&p=5

 

[Brad93]

One small thing to be aware of in an older machine with a quill is wear in the drive splines. A facemill is quite hard on the machine in this area and it can rattle a bit and exacerbate the problem. There are pictures of people's solutions for this on Bridgeports (which hold the male and female splines together to eliminate the backlash), most using a simple spring. The use of a spring still allows the quill to be used. If the spring solution does not suit the machine, something else to load the splines together can be made but would stop use of the quill when it is installed or tightened up.

There was some discussion of it hidden in a thread on Model Engineer:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=123926&p=5

There’s no wear in this quill. Quill can be locked too anyway.

 

[Brad93]

Where can I get a good ER32 collet chuck from? Is arc euro trade any good? Will have to knock up an M16 drawbar.

Cutwel collets still the ones to go for or Vertex?

 

[Brad93]

One small thing to be aware of in an older machine with a quill is wear in the drive splines. A facemill is quite hard on the machine in this area and it can rattle a bit and exacerbate the problem. There are pictures of people's solutions for this on Bridgeports (which hold the male and female splines together to eliminate the backlash), most using a simple spring. The use of a spring still allows the quill to be used. If the spring solution does not suit the machine, something else to load the splines together can be made but would stop use of the quill when it is installed or tightened up.

There was some discussion of it hidden in a thread on Model Engineer:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=123926&p=5

Sorry I didn’t read that properly. Yes, there is a tad of wear in the splines that’s run up and down the pulley. Nothing that can’t be fixed. It’s only a degree or so of backlash. More an issue is the vibration induced from the joiner in the leather belt.