Milling Machine Handles

[rossbotics]

I’ve had this Harbor Freight Knee Milling Machine for about 9 years now (it’s one of those red ones model #40939) over those years I have done a lot of work to it here and there to trying to make it better, surprisingly it is a pretty good milling machine though, (nothing like a Bridgeport) the machine is very rigid in construction and will repeat within a thousands or two, the only thing that has bothered me the most about this machine is those red round crank handles that came on it! I have looked all over for different handles but none seamed to my fancy they were either too small or too big or I just didn’t like them, so I decided to make three like I wanted.

I used the existing revolving handles and made the rest of the cranks from scratch, nothing fancy just some aluminum flat bar and some 1¼” round aluminum for the ball ends and a lot of machining and modifications to make them work.

All in all they came out as I expected and work to my standards, I have included some photos of the machining processes along with the handles installed.

Thanks for looking and happy machining

Doug