MY NEW MILL

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cwolfs69

cwolfs69

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just got my new HF mini mill out of the box today. Ordered it prior to Mom passing and it arrived while we were gone to her funeral. been busy since returning and just today had some time to get the table ready for it. i removed a radial arm saw from this table, put a new board on top, added wheels an put the mill on top of it. boy was there some grease on the surfaces. have not bolted it down yet but will probably do that tomorrow. i did put a digital level on the piece after tramming the column and the thing seems to be level within 1/2° no matter where i put the level. Column trammed within .002 with no problem as well. seems to be pretty decent machine. have some tooling from LMS and am going to convert to belt drive ASAP. DRO in house to install on X & Y axis. will let you know how it works in a few days. here is one pic that i took today.
minimill2.jpg
 
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Those are actually pretty versatile little machines, it's surprising what can be done on them with just a little bit of ingenuity. They're actually pretty sturdy machines and the R-8 spindle makes all kinds of tooling readily available.

Several things you should consider getting:

1 - and very important- get a spare set of drive gears. They have a tendency to fail under any accidental shock loads (such as hitting the piece to fast with to heavy a cut or anything similar). Metal gears are available if you want, but the stock plastic gears are cheap and very fast and easy to replace (and provide a bit of a safety margin) so they really aren't that big of a deal. They will end up breaking at the most inconvenient possible time.

2 - both a mill vise and clamps and a decent number of T-nuts for the table slots. All thread rod in the right thread for whatever T-nuts you get -there are the ones that come standard and ones that are a bit different sized but work just as well - I bought a bunch at Grainger years ago but don't recall the size they were listed as being- They're really handy for making odd length clamping bolts for different setups. If making a choice of which to get first I'd go with the clamps, a decent mill vise in a suitable size can be a bit expensive and you can do more with clamps than with a vise even if it isn't quite as convenient.

Make a habit of using the locking levers for the bed and head whenever it isn't being actively used (i.e. lock the head up when changing bits or setting a piece up so it can't come down on your hand, and lock the bed on the axis that is not being used to move the piece so the adjustment doesn't change while milling).
 
ref: MY NEW MILL

Good mill there Charley. I got the HF Micro Mill (discontinued). Added CNC to it about 7 years ago.

You are going to be able to do a lot with that. Have fun.

Ray
 
i already have a pretty good variety of tooling for the mill. when i made the decision to buy the mill i started picking up stuff from LMS. have a good vice, t-nuts, coaxial indicator, end mills, collets, digital readouts for x & y axis, boring head and a few others on the way. hope my years of working in the field help.
 
Hey Charlie,
Don't waste any money with the power feed unit, took mine off, more trouble than its worth, you might need the air spring kit from LMS if you are adding DRO on the Z, which you might want to do, if like mine, it develops a lot of play on the Z at the gimbal on the drive rod from the adjust nob. The plastic transmission gears are just pure crap, get the belt drive, I opted for the all metal gear route, and its a royal pain in the butt to switch out, and if you don't have a large bench press, just don't do it.
Richard
 
penmaker56 said:
Hey Charlie,
Don't waste any money with the power feed unit, took mine off, more trouble than its worth, you might need the air spring kit from LMS if you are adding DRO
Click to expand...

Second on the air spring kit. From the photo the rack does not run the full length of the column, so you need the full kit.

get the belt drive
Click to expand...
Yep! It is quieter and more forgiving if you make a mistake.

You will also want a "wiggler" for finding center and an edge finder if you intend to do milling.

Hope this helps.
 
yes i plan on changing to belt drive. and as far as the air spring i intend to convert to another system instead of the one LMS sells. i have already ordered the air springs and will begin to machine the parts when i get some drawings done. you can see what i plan at this web page down near the bottom.;
hidden dual spring conversion . i think this one will be more efficient and looks much better that the LMS one. also plan to add the long rack. put the X axis digital readout on today and works great. reads off by .001" at any distance. seems to lose .001" almost instantly and then maintains accuracy forever after that. cant wait to cut something. it seems very sturdy compared to what i expected.
 
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I know that no one knows you are dumb until you speak, but here it goes. I see many people have metal lathes, what are some of the uses?

I am interested to learn?
 
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