Router Mill for Aluminum (Poor Man's Milling Machine)

After hand working a bunch of sand cast parts for my Gingery lathe I decided there must be a better way. So I built up a little mill consisting of a wood frame, cross slide vice and standard router for preparing the surface of cast aluminum parts.

Here is a link to a YouTube Video of the mill in action.

Assembled Mill:
Attachment 3221
Router Removed (exposing cross slide vice):
Attachment 3222
Closeup with workpiece shown through router hole:
Attachment 3223


EDIT: Added details below this line.

One of the comments Wmrra13 made below made me think of some additional details that might be interesting.

The router was mounted to a ring of aluminum which was in turn bolted to piece of wood that made up the top of the router mill. The ring of aluminum was made from the bottom of a nonstick aluminum frying pan. In the picture below the top plate of the mill is leaning against the back wall so you can see the black, non-stick (Teflon) coated, side of the frying pan.
Attachment 3253

I used a high speed high helix bit specifically designed for high speed aluminum machining for most of my cuts but I also used regular wood cutting bits if I needed a special feature like inside corner rounded.

I usually sprayed the work piece with WD-40 to prevent the chips from sticking to the bit. The WD-40 seemed to work well for that application.

Brilliant idea. Looking forward to seeing the finished lathe!

Al

Good solution.

Thanks scorch! I've added your Router Mill for Aluminum to our Machining category, as well as to your builder page: scorch's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="/router-mill-for-aluminum"><img src="/uploads/114758/router-mill-for-aluminum.jpeg" alt="Router Mill for Aluminum" /></a> </div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="/router-mill-for-aluminum">Router Mill for Aluminum</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/scorch">scorch</a></span> </div> <div class="tags"> tags: <a href="/tag/vise">vise</a>, <a href="/tag/mill">mill</a>, <a href="/tag/router">router</a>, <a href="/tag/cross-slide">cross slide</a> </div> </div> </div> </div>

Scorch,

I just looked at your site - lots of cool stuff!

I'd be interested in seeing more about your aluminum casting tools and techniques.

Your router mill is cool and would be even better if the top plate that that the router is mounted to was made out of polycarbonate or something else transparent. Still, I'm not sure why you need it since you have a really cool CNC router setup?

Cheers,
Tyler

Thanks Wmrra13,

I do plan to post more of my stuff. I am pondering building a minimalist foundry to post. It is pretty shocking how much you can do with very little investment.

You are right I don't really need the router mill anymore. In fact I don't have it. I sold off the cross slide vice and have since mounted the router motor to my CNC mill (using a cast aluminum part). I didn't have the CNC mill when I made the router mill.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scorch

Thanks Wmrra13,

I am pondering building a minimalist foundry to post. It is pretty shocking how much you can do with very little investment.

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I just bought the Gingery casting book. I think that's one of my next projects.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scorch

...since mounted the router motor to my CNC mill (using a cast aluminum part). I didn't have the CNC mill when I made the router mill.)

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That's what caught my eye.

Thanks,
Tyler

FYI, I added an additional picture and a little more description to the original post above. (for future readers)

Okay, now I need to go buy a router. Amazing work. Thanks for posting.

Ron

That's a great post, scorch! Thanks for the idea.