Milling Head stiffening fixture

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi,
As I said, I have purchased a nice milling head that goes together with my lathe.
This lathe is Chinese made, sold by a company from Austria which is quite OK.
When I installed the milling head, I found the attachment between the column of the mill and the bed of the lathe as a weak point.
It is made of only 4 screws, not locking very well the column in rotation.

I was looking at the best way to improve that in order to avoid any rigidity issue. I was about to install some screws in the joint between the column and the bed, to avoid any relative movement when suddenly, the light came !

Eventually, I finished with this solution :





It could not be stronger nor stiffer !

Of course, I made oval holes, and used a digital angle gauge to set the column perfectly perpendicular to the bed before tightening the screws on the wall.

[tonyfoale]

Christophe,

Is the mill spindle axis aligned with the lathe axis, such that you could drill central holes in material held in a lathe chuck? I guess that would require that the mill head was made for that particular lathe and is not general purpose to fit any lathe.
Or is the head designed to make use of the saddle and cross slide movements as per a real milling machine?

[DIYer]

Thanks Christophe Mineau! We've added your Mill Head Stiffening Fixture to our Milling category,
as well as to your builder page: Christophe Mineau's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Mill Head Stiffening Fixture by Christophe Mineau

tags: mill, modification, fixture

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi Tony,
The Mill axis is aligned with the lathe axis, but the chuck if too far away from the mill axis for this application to be practical.
The mill is used with the the cross slide acting as a table, it features 2 T slots for that purpose. (which is nice)

[Okapi]

Hi Christophe,
For such special fixture, I've used with success silentblocs coming from old motorcycle rear suspension, they are made with two metal parts with a rubber part very thin, they give for more security a rigide mount without the risk of vibrations, it's in metric dimensions around 22-25mm. outside for a 12mm. axis with a length around 20-25mm., mine are coming from an old stock but I suppose they are still used today.
Have a nice day.
Pierre

[Christophe Mineau]

Merci Pierre,
It would be a nice addition, as well as another comment I received on FB to add triangles to stiffen yet more the fixture. Let's see how it turns out with time.
Thanks !