I always chuckle when all the experts come out and tell you how you shouldn't do things like this. Great video showing you can do things with what you have. Not everybody has deep enough pockets for a mill. Thanks.
for operations like this you should use a roughing endmill. with this bit you should instead begin from the top and carve your way to the bottom, very light cuts, even more with a drill press. This will reduce lateral forces. dont use x y at the same time, set your z, travel along x or y during the cut and move back to starting position, also avoid up milling for the same reasons, it adds more forces during travel and also will damage your bit faster.
This is for viewers...I expect since this vid is over 3 yrs old that the creator has figured this stuff out....The x,y vise he is using has gib adjustments on it. If he had of adjusted those gibs that vise would be fine...A drill press works very nicely for milling wood, plastics and very soft metal like aluminum. Not so good for harder metals.The higher quality that your drill press is and the softer the material...The less chatter you will get. Most drill presses are not made to take a side load. If you try to cut hard materials the chuck will come out of its taper unless you have one of the few drill presses that the chuck is fastened. If you are wanting to mill soft materials like wood and plastic and softer aluminum there is no point in spending allot on a mill. Buy a cheap drill press and a cheap x,y vise and look into getting some high quality bearings that can take side load if you experience allot of chatter... Get a mill if you are gonna be doing allot of milling on anything harder than aluminum. Also on a drill press you are limited on the size of material that you can cut by the drill press and the vise size.
Just be careful because too much side load could cause the chuck to fall out. The only thing holding it in is friction. When you use the drill press normally (vertically) the chuck is always being forced into the taper in the press tightening it.
Agreed, but the only way to mill effectively and not have the chuck drop is to replace it with an MT2 ER32 or ER25 collet chuck with a drawbar of some kind backing it up and a clamping collar on the outside backing that up at the quill to collet chuck interface. It can be made safe and rigid but steps are required with parts and some turning. Like most machining equipment, making a milling machine is much easier if you already have a lathe. The learnings from the process are really great, but there is a knowledge curve and some parts making for the process to succeed with a viable tool that can be used for real machining when you need it.
Yes a collet chuck with its arbor to replace the drill chuck and arbor is the way to go. The only solution I have seen to securely retain collet chuck/arbor in quill is to drill hole thru the two with a bolt and nut. Perhaps there is a way to add a locking drawbar to a drill press but have never seen how.
@@danah358 It is rather clunky, I made a mini drawbar with an M6 bolt that locks through the taper knock hole. It is quite fiddly but it works, especially with a locking collar on the outside interface to back it up and if you leave the ER chuck in. I set up my drill chuck to work with the ER chuck when needed. Some will baulk at the need to adapt the drill chuck but it's a priority I chose to make to have a rigid light duty milling setup. I already had a quality X-Y table, milling vise and toe clamps so for no large expense I'm now milling. If I had the shop space I probably would get a proper milling machine but this does decent work with good surface finishes.
I've torn up a few drill presses trying to mill on them. If you keep your feeds really light and stay with small diameter cutters you can get away with it but sooner or later you get over confidant and too familiar with it and hurt the drill press. The really old heavy duty drill presses seem to handle it better. My primary use for an x-y table is when I need to do really precise hole locations. And in a pinch I have clamped one to the ways of a wood lathe, played with the pulleys to slow it down, improvised a tool post and done some emergency metal turning jobs. As long as you don't need power feed it works great.
i'm not a machinist, but i'm certain you are supposed to take many passes going in like a 1/16th or 1/8" at a time. Just a bit at a time so you don't stress the sides. I've done this with drill bits with not so accurate results, but it worked, though it came out wonky.
Surely four flute end mills are intended to cut on the side - you can’t plunge cut with them - that’s what two flute end mills - slot drills - are intended for otherwise I’d agree with all of the comments he made. I’ve cut keyways in shafts, machined hexagon nuts from round bar and other intricate things with my two axis milling vice. Two things I’d recommend : If the machine has a screw-type adjustable depth stop, use that to control the depth of cut, and use the quill clamp to lock the quill at the set depth
Make sure that the gib strips are snug to ensure there is no looseness in the slideways, and lock up the axis of travel which you are not using, to improve rigidity
Agreed. I broke a drill press shank doing something similar while very young - trying to cut grooves in rubber wheels for a sliding gate track. Using it as a lathe. The spindles are not designed for axial loads.
The direction of cutting vs the flutes orientation is important: upmilling vs downmilling. Oh and since your end mill, chuck and arbor could come loose highly recommend you wear a face shield that includes neck coverage.
I just used my drill press to mill a barrel inlet in a piece of black walnut for an antique gun. While I'm happy with the results (which I just used the press to hog out the majority of the material and finished by hand) I found the drill press as unstable. The Chuck or quill has some left to right slop (run-out)that transfers into a slightly wider groove then I would have liked. I also cranked up the speed to 3000 rpms. I fed the material extremely slow at very shallow passes. It did work pretty well but if I was going to do this type of work in the future on any regular basis, I'd probably invest in a mill.
I do not use a chuck but a collet whit a MT2 modified (shoten) whit a "T" bolt inside the opening of MT removing tool. The "t bolt is use in place of draw bar.
There's these old school contraptions known as hand tools, that can accomplish almost any task in the workshop but they require three things that are almost lost forever. Willingness, effort and patience.
So although it's horrible and sloppy, you might be able to fix some of that by tightening it up, there's adjustment screwes that are obviously lose for shipping, and yeah it's gonna be a bit crappy cuz they have not great finishing cuts, but you could always take it apart, hit the faces with a bit of file backed 100 grit or so and fix that.
Buy the way, good job with your drill press mill job. Mills are very expensive , an unless your going to be milling all the time and only need a mill once in a blue moon, I say good job ! This guy gets the job done without spending thousands ! never thought about it that way did you guys with the negitive comments !
Nothing wrong with the HF vise you just have take it apart give it a good cleaning and adjust and tighten it up to take any slop out. I have used a few. Even milled out an AR 80% lower years ago.
This is all I want to do, just mill slots occasionally . I think I'll give it a try. I do have an " x y vise" that I have never used so nows the time to pick up a 4-cutter end mill and give it a try. I too, realize that this is no substitute for a milling machine, but it can get those little jobs done. Thanks for the clear video.
Hey those cross slide vises have slide tensioner bolts to snug up the slack on them just make sure the slides are clean and then grease them and tighten up all the slide tensioner bolts snug enough they have no slack or wiggle in it and it's not hard to do . I've got mine snug enough until when I make any travel with it by turning the travel handles it's got some firmness to move the cross slide. A lathe has the same type of tension on the slide on the tool holder.they have to be adjusted to where there's not any play side to side or up and down.snug up the bolts or Allen head bolts just until it feels good and firm but still able to move your crossslide and make sure they are clean and lubed with wheel bearing grease before tightening them up and you will get a smooth cut and finish on what your cutting . Hey I liked your video and it's good to see you doing something worth wild of doing. I started out watching my uncle and my father over 50 years ago they were professional machinist with lathes and milling machines . My uncle made fighter jet parts for a naval place just out of Jacksonville Florida. It was called N.A.R.F. it was a place for navy jets to be worked on like sabre jets when I went there and wow when I walked through that place with my uncle and my father and I was only around 8 years old I was amazed at all those jet fighter planes with all the tail find with painting of the squadron on them one had a bat flying by a yellow moon 🌕 and I even got to climb up a ladder and look in the cockpit of a sabre you know the ones that had the air intake in the front under the cockpit that was great moment in my like. Well anyway I became a machinist when I grew up and I'm now retired. You can become very wealthy being a machinist. My uncle was way past just being a millionaire. If you love machinist work work at and your math there is a lot of math in that job and now days it pays good money and if you got your own machinery and good at it you'll have it made my friend. I started off with small mini lathe s and milling machines and drill press and keep getting bigger and bigger and better machines . Like planting a seed and it keeps growing and before long it's turned into a big tree . Take care and I wish you the best of a future good luck
As someone with some experience on a real endmill and a drill press end mill I would like to correct a couple things. If you are milling steel you should be hitting it with cooling fluid every few seconds. Not once for the whole operation. Also, lock the drill press handle and don't touch it. Moving it up and down like that can cause side loads that can break bits. If you are doing it right you should see chips instead of the bits of metal dust. Take it slow and try again.
I think your drill press is capable of doing the job but I could see a lot of play in the vise. Have you tried to put shims in the gaps? You might also want to try milling with just the end of the bit the lowering it, locking the quill lock and making another pass. This will cause less pressure sideways on the bit and it should last longer.
I just bought the same xy vice he has, and they have updated it. You can now adjust the play or slop, out of it. I tried exactly what he did in the video, and it worked great.
8 лет назад+1
+Tater79bj Hey thats great to hear! Also im glad they upgraded the vise because the one i have has some real issues. I think im gonna buy a nicer one from grizzly.
I think if you just needed to do a one-off or prototype, you could do it with hand tools. If you wanted to do anything at scale/automated, obviously you would need a proper end-mill.
Everyone is an expert on the keyboard. Matbe, - Just maybe, some of us don't have access to all the fancy tools and need to find a get around. This does just that .
This can work with decent results. The best thing to do is replace the bearings. That would improve things two fold. Fill the post up with concrete to minimize vibration. Check out a milling chart for spindle speed, then run approximately the same. Use the biggest end mill that will fit your work piece or chuck. If possible swap chuck for a collets. I have been using a Barnes camelback for years now doing the same thing. The absolute mass of mine keeps it from vibrating.
Nonsense. I can assure you the runout on that drill chuck is not even close to milling tolerances. Then you can worry about the bearings. Better to buy a cheap Chinese mill.
Yeah, the Morse Taper -> Jacobs taper aren't happy with latteral motion. I'd love to have a vert. milling machine, but can't justify the cost even for a mini-benchtop one. Having said that, I'm thinking about getting a used DP and replacing the stem, arbor, etc with a collet for holding milling bits. Will still need to be gentle with the latteral movement as the bearings my get fkt. I really only need it for soft stuff like alum. nylon, etc. Anyway, nice vid. thanks for posting.
it would help tremendously if you tightened down the gibs so your vise jaws are not jumping up and down . You are just lucky you didn't break that end mill. You should have those ways the vises move in just tight enough so they slide. That't it.
I can certainly appreciate trying to make do with what you have. I certainly don’t have the money for a real mill. I would like to echo another comment: You want the tip to do the work for you and avoid cutting with the sides of the flutes. Keep improvising and overcome my friend.
So im new to garage milling too, and as such am not super knowledgeable with what types of speed and feed materials need on various machines with various tooling. However from the little that I've done with my setup that is somewhat similar AKA a drill press a cross vise and Bets I would suggest that instead of trying to do a combination of drilling and Milling at the same time dropped the amount you're trying to Mill out in one pass significantly. Lots of little passes following the same path. For the couple projects I've done I've only gone maybe an eighth of an inch at a time. And follow a conventional Milling path until you're comfortable with that before learning climb Milling. I had better luck pinning the drill chuck completely up or completely down instead of having to worry about the Chuck going up and down while controlling my feed path at the same time just my two cents. Good luck
Looks like it is working.But I think the key is in the good milling bit (or whatever it is called).I need to make a channel in steel detail and definitely will try this.The problem will be to find good tool.And not too expensive as well :-). Wish you success.And: safety first!
P.S some times places get rid of old machinist tools and machine that are not so big that small enough to get you going and usually for not much money just to get them out of the way. Because they got larger newer and more safistcated models so keep a lookout if you're interested in machinist work. Those old dinosaurs still do so fine work
You would have much better luck using a larger mill end than a smaller one... I know this from experience as I did it on my old drill press with a HF 3 way vice after tightening it up alot...... the problem is the speed I used a 4 flute milling bit in the chuck ( a 3/8" one) to make a long slot for an alternator adjustment arm. the mill-end I used had cutting edges on the bottom of it so I could plunge it ( got them from HF as well) with the speed slow so I had more power I would plunge the web out and then turn up the speed to as high as it would go and nibble away at the dimples left and smooth the sides now understand my drill press had alot of runout in it ... the bearings in the head were shot but I still accomplished a milling job !.... but if I got the pressure wrong (too much pressure) it would go into a harmonic that threatened to tear down the house ! .... although I never broke the bit it scared the heck out of me a few times ! my milling machine now is just a glorified heavy drill press and I cannot take any cuts more than a 1/16" or it will go into harmonic roaring because of the flex in the frame work the mill is a home made affair that I used the milling head from a HF 3 in 1 mill drill lathe . and a old shop smith lathe frame and a camper jack.... it works but not as good as I had hoped, it needs to be alot more solid to mill correctly. I bought a small milling table for it that like the HF vice had to be tightened up and it works good now. ..... necessity is the mother of invention ! there is always another way to do it ! .... I am convinced you can make a good mill from a strong drill press you just have to make it a whole lot stronger.... and locktight the morris taper drill chuck in !
Your video is informative for the poor man just starting out on the press. Don't cut on the return motion - just be careful not to use to much radial force on that press.
Nothing like a brain using critical thinking and ingenuity to get to where your minds eye is seeing an end result. You’ll do great things Grasshopper! Keep Tinkering
I think you would be better off with a Dremel and some fine hand files. Using a drill press for this kind of operation will burn out the bearings in the drill. It's not designed to take lateral pressure like a mill is. You will never have any precision or even straight lines if you can't make your setup totally rigid like you can on a mill. Save your drill press and find another way.
I've been using a rhinofab an actual mill but rather that a 4 fluted bit will work better a bit more expensive and also I ran at about 10,000rpm the higher the better for mill bits and cutting oil is a must
Buy a good X-Y TABLE and additionally a milling vise. All X-Y vises are pretty much junk, or you will spend as much as you will for a cast iron milled and ground X-Y table with V ways and gibs, which is what you want anyway. The table and a clamping kit will let you hold much larger parts than a vise will. You still can only do small and light machining, but there is a very common use case for light machine work on larger parts. But if you go down this route you will identify other areas of the drill press that also need upgrading to make more precise and more rigid. These can be done cheaply but you will have to know what you are doing.
First thing I'd do is bolt the bloody drill press down solid!! What is it with you guys, SO many vids with machines of all types rockin' and a rollin' in the bench....
😒 3 flute or 2 flute end Mills are always used for aluminum or Plastics 4 flute end Mills are for steals. Sometimes I use 12 flute end mills for high-speed finishing If my boss saw me doing what you're doing first he would slap me in the face then he would fire me😨
How do you ensure the chuck doesn't drop out of the drill-press ram during machining type operations that don't maintain vertical pressure? I am concerned the simple, taper-fit friction may not hold the chuck secure with high frequency chatter and vibration of side cutting/milling.
You are right to be concerned. To mill effectively with a drill press the chuck should be replaced with a ER32 or ER25 to MT taper collet chuck with a drawbar behind it and make a clamping collar for the outside quill to collet chuck interface. A drill press can be made into an effective milling machine for light work but having a lathe already helps a great deal. With knowledge gains and a few parts made and a few more purchased I have been able to mill large and small parts safely and with rigidity and precision on my setup.
you did titghten the vice gibbs right? thats lot of slop that shoul be tightened up esily ceap or not and you absoluteky have to lock down the spindle otherwise eventually its going to fall out from sideoad and take your eye out
U need an older drill press, they don't make em like the used to anymore... I mill on my drill press for really big things with 1/2 + end mills & I mill on my cnc router for 1/2 & below. Also get a bigger nicer table/vise.
You are breaking bits because you go way to deep.. its supposed to take layer by layer slowly. And these tables are amazing if you consider them to not be mill tables instead its a "cross vise" being able to drill alot of precis holes in 1 object without moving your vise and reclamping everything. Its trully amazing handy tool. It can be handy for some simple milling project like myself i make the slots for spearguns (wood) and fine tune triggers and spears i make (stainless steel) but cutting in steel is a very slow process.
curtis haughton that's because it's China made and Harbor Freight sold you're not going to find anything made in China that is going to be a quality piece tooling
I couldn’t imagine giving this a try I seen the surface tilt a number of time which would end up costing me more money and time. If you are stuck on using this method to get by for now. Try a rotary tool with a drill press stand. I think it would work much better. The rotary tool has many different burs you could swap in and out for desired cuts.
do not use a drill chuck for milling, is designed for vertical load not side load. You can use morse taper mills or a morse taper collet holder and cheap er16 collets
Ahhh...aren't you suppose to use the end of the milling bit and not the side of the bit? I guess that's why it is called an end mill. The bite is t the tip of the bit so you need to start at the top of the piece and work your way down; like you are shaving the top each pass. The spiral on the bit is fore evacuating material as you cut, not to cut the material.
@Clifford Moeller Yeah your totally right the vise is crap and i mention that in the beginning of the video, I highly recomend that you try to save money on the x,y vise because you get what you pay for and a good vise will last several life times. The Drill press which is porta-cable is ok it does have some play in the quill if its not locked down using the depth screw this would work much better on an older more solid drill press. Thanks for the comment!
For a mill bit so small, this is all wrong. The speed too slow, the cut too deep on the bit. Even on a milling machine, this would be wrong. I jigsaw and file would do a better job than ruining the drill press.
When milling you should not be going up and down you need to go in a bit and mill left to right then put the bit deeper lock it go left to right you are breaking bits because you are just doing it wrong regardless of the vice even with a perfect vice you shouldn't do it that way just trying to help
Please do some machine work before posting comments. Working with the end of the end mill is the best technique when you have a shaky setup or machine.
once youve drilled the 3 holes you could've just chiselled those bits off, thats what my engineer friend did .......it blew me away !! then just file any imperfections.
This press has worked like a charm for my projects ruclips.net/user/postUgkxajoEbapTfqWaadnqb04h6U576yxXp-FE . I didn't even secure it to my table top, mainly due to the fact that I was using a 15 lbs drill vise. It's not flimsy at all as to what others have claimed it to be. Make sure the locking nuts and levers are secured and there won't be any issues with light pressure and patience. I was able to drill through aluminum, plastic, and steel (steel took a while) with no problems at all. Yeah it took a little longer than a regular drill press, but I don't have the space OR the money for one.The instruction manual was worthless, but luckily assembling the press was intuitive. However, the manual would be good for ordering replacement parts if needed. There is a nice breakdown of the parts that are included in the kit. Before ordering, make sure it is compatible with your unit, it is clearly stated what models the press is compatible with.This was an excellent purchase for $40!!
That is lateral material removal. It is really not even close to milling. A drill chuck is not for milling at all, that is what collets are for. I predict massive deflection.
That was painful to watch . There are many pro and hobbyist machinist on RUclips , take the time to look around . Lots of tips , tricks , and the basics . Save up and buy a proper setup. An ol timer gave some words of wisdom when I was a pup. Half ass setups can only produce half ass work .
That is all great. Except the drill press is not designed to bear lateral loads. And that will screw up chuck, bearings, etc. So you will get side play and your drilling work will lose precision.
almost as fast as a file. 5 thousands would be a starting place for a pass and it might be too much for a duck tape rig. I mill in my drill press and it takes longer than any other method and is not as accurate. under a thousand will get you a mini mill and some tooling to do a proper job
hint: find small feed carriage for lathe on local scrap yard, after small repair you will have one feed axes with good tight ways, and handle with feed drum put it on drill table, and tight with bolts -- maybe you will need some grinding to cut unneeded lugs, and make downside flat and stable see here to understand about part I mean: ruclips.net/video/iTJVXA1zqZ4/видео.html
OK young man, save some dollars to get an Ameribrade 2x72 belt grinder and a Hougen magdrill (30lbs). dint know an XY vice is a thing, until i saw this. 2cents, Thanks.
Drill presses are designed to handle vertical torque, whereas mills can handle sideways torque. Using an X-Y table on a drill press to position holes is a good idea, milling on the drill press is not. You can get good, relatively inexpensive, mini mills with high torque brushless DC motors from Micro Mark and Little Machine Shop. Don't waste your money on other mills with weaker motors from other vendors. And DON'T RUIN THE BEARINGS IN YOUR DRILL PRESS BY PUTTING SIDEWAYS PRESSURE ON THEM!
Your depth of cut is too deep for your setup. Ideally you should cut to a depth of maybe 30 thousandths and clean out the whole area. Then go back and keep making those .030 deep cuts until you are all the way through.
I.see all these guys on youtube trying to make 1/4" deep cuts all at ine time than saying the setup is junk or not ideal when it would work waaayyy better if they just did 0.2 mm passes they would be plesently surprised
It will "work" on any drill press but for how long depends on the quality of the drill press. If you take apart the quill on one of those fifty buck HF ones you will find that the drive shaft down the center is barely 5/8" in diameter and the bearings are really light. Check out craigslist and e-bay for an old forties and fifties vintage drill press. You can find them for fifty to a hundred. They might need a bit of refurbishing but they are far tougher than the HF stuff.
Very basic but some times a guy in his shed has to find a way of doing something with minimum tools ,been there.
I always chuckle when all the experts come out and tell you how you shouldn't do things like this. Great video showing you can do things with what you have. Not everybody has deep enough pockets for a mill. Thanks.
for operations like this you should use a roughing endmill. with this bit you should instead begin from the top and carve your way to the bottom, very light cuts, even more with a drill press. This will reduce lateral forces. dont use x y at the same time, set your z, travel along x or y during the cut and move back to starting position, also avoid up milling for the same reasons, it adds more forces during travel and also will damage your bit faster.
This is for viewers...I expect since this vid is over 3 yrs old that the creator has figured this stuff out....The x,y vise he is using has gib adjustments on it. If he had of adjusted those gibs that vise would be fine...A drill press works very nicely for milling wood, plastics and very soft metal like aluminum. Not so good for harder metals.The higher quality that your drill press is and the softer the material...The less chatter you will get. Most drill presses are not made to take a side load. If you try to cut hard materials the chuck will come out of its taper unless you have one of the few drill presses that the chuck is fastened. If you are wanting to mill soft materials like wood and plastic and softer aluminum there is no point in spending allot on a mill. Buy a cheap drill press and a cheap x,y vise and look into getting some high quality bearings that can take side load if you experience allot of chatter... Get a mill if you are gonna be doing allot of milling on anything harder than aluminum. Also on a drill press you are limited on the size of material that you can cut by the drill press and the vise size.
Just be careful because too much side load could cause the chuck to fall out. The only thing holding it in is friction. When you use the drill press normally (vertically) the chuck is always being forced into the taper in the press tightening it.
Agreed, but the only way to mill effectively and not have the chuck drop is to replace it with an MT2 ER32 or ER25 collet chuck with a drawbar of some kind backing it up and a clamping collar on the outside backing that up at the quill to collet chuck interface. It can be made safe and rigid but steps are required with parts and some turning. Like most machining equipment, making a milling machine is much easier if you already have a lathe. The learnings from the process are really great, but there is a knowledge curve and some parts making for the process to succeed with a viable tool that can be used for real machining when you need it.
Yes a collet chuck with its arbor to replace the drill chuck and arbor is the way to go. The only solution I have seen to securely retain collet chuck/arbor in quill is to drill hole thru the two with a bolt and nut. Perhaps there is a way to add a locking drawbar to a drill press but have never seen how.
@@danah358 It is rather clunky, I made a mini drawbar with an M6 bolt that locks through the taper knock hole. It is quite fiddly but it works, especially with a locking collar on the outside interface to back it up and if you leave the ER chuck in. I set up my drill chuck to work with the ER chuck when needed. Some will baulk at the need to adapt the drill chuck but it's a priority I chose to make to have a rigid light duty milling setup. I already had a quality X-Y table, milling vise and toe clamps so for no large expense I'm now milling. If I had the shop space I probably would get a proper milling machine but this does decent work with good surface finishes.
I've torn up a few drill presses trying to mill on them. If you keep your feeds really light and stay with small diameter cutters you can get away with it but sooner or later you get over confidant and too familiar with it and hurt the drill press. The really old heavy duty drill presses seem to handle it better. My primary use for an x-y table is when I need to do really precise hole locations. And in a pinch I have clamped one to the ways of a wood lathe, played with the pulleys to slow it down, improvised a tool post and done some emergency metal turning jobs. As long as you don't need power feed it works great.
i'm not a machinist, but i'm certain you are supposed to take many passes going in like a 1/16th or 1/8" at a time. Just a bit at a time so you don't stress the sides. I've done this with drill bits with not so accurate results, but it worked, though it came out wonky.
I guess you have never seen a real mill. Slow steady small cuts from the TIP OF THE TOOL. amazingness
indeed i say the same but bot readed yours only need the tip
Made me real nervous watching him cut from the flute
A game of just the tip.. lol
Surely four flute end mills are intended to cut on the side - you can’t plunge cut with them - that’s what two flute end mills - slot drills - are intended for otherwise I’d agree with all of the comments he made. I’ve cut keyways in shafts, machined hexagon nuts from round bar and other intricate things with my two axis milling vice.
Two things I’d recommend :
If the machine has a screw-type adjustable depth stop, use that to control the depth of cut, and use the quill clamp to lock the quill at the set depth
Make sure that the gib strips are snug to ensure there is no looseness in the slideways, and lock up the axis of travel which you are not using, to improve rigidity
He’s not a machinist, he’s working with what he’s got. I will say that the lateral pressures the drill press is taking will cause damage.
Agreed. I broke a drill press shank doing something similar while very young - trying to cut grooves in rubber wheels for a sliding gate track. Using it as a lathe. The spindles are not designed for axial loads.
The direction of cutting vs the flutes orientation is important: upmilling vs downmilling. Oh and since your end mill, chuck and arbor could come loose highly recommend you wear a face shield that includes neck coverage.
The "Riser blocks" you speak of are typically referred to as parallels, just fyi.
Cheers!
I just used my drill press to mill a barrel inlet in a piece of black walnut for an antique gun. While I'm happy with the results (which I just used the press to hog out the majority of the material and finished by hand) I found the drill press as unstable. The Chuck or quill has some left to right slop (run-out)that transfers into a slightly wider groove then I would have liked. I also cranked up the speed to 3000 rpms. I fed the material extremely slow at very shallow passes. It did work pretty well but if I was going to do this type of work in the future on any regular basis, I'd probably invest in a mill.
The things that raise the work piece are call parallels or pillow blocks
I do not use a chuck but a collet whit a MT2 modified (shoten) whit a "T" bolt inside the opening of MT removing tool. The "t bolt is use in place of draw bar.
There's these old school contraptions known as hand tools, that can accomplish almost any task in the workshop but they require three things that are almost lost forever.
Willingness, effort and patience.
So although it's horrible and sloppy, you might be able to fix some of that by tightening it up, there's adjustment screwes that are obviously lose for shipping, and yeah it's gonna be a bit crappy cuz they have not great finishing cuts, but you could always take it apart, hit the faces with a bit of file backed 100 grit or so and fix that.
Buy the way, good job with your drill press mill job. Mills are very expensive , an unless your going to be milling all the time and only need a mill once in a blue moon, I say good job ! This guy gets the job done without spending thousands ! never thought about it that way did you guys with the negitive comments !
right on mate
Nothing wrong with the HF vise you just have take it apart give it a good cleaning and adjust and tighten it up to take any slop out. I have used a few. Even milled out an AR 80% lower years ago.
I remember reading somewhere that using a thin piece of paper (type?) btw end mill and chuck jaws helps to retain the mill from side load loosening.
You can mill with vertical presses. It will take longer, but it is better for the machine.
to calculate correct speed, formula is cutting speed x 4/diameter of endmill
This is all I want to do, just mill slots occasionally . I think I'll give it a try. I do have an " x y vise" that I have never used so nows the time to pick up a 4-cutter end mill and give it a try.
I too, realize that this is no substitute for a milling machine, but it can get those little jobs done.
Thanks for the clear video.
How did you do with your experiment? Was it any good, do you still use it?
outstanding film to watch we never stop learning and have great fun .
I plunged arecess to fit a hinge and the bit pulled itself into the work. Both from the chuck and the morse taper.
Hey those cross slide vises have slide tensioner bolts to snug up the slack on them just make sure the slides are clean and then grease them and tighten up all the slide tensioner bolts snug enough they have no slack or wiggle in it and it's not hard to do . I've got mine snug enough until when I make any travel with it by turning the travel handles it's got some firmness to move the cross slide. A lathe has the same type of tension on the slide on the tool holder.they have to be adjusted to where there's not any play side to side or up and down.snug up the bolts or Allen head bolts just until it feels good and firm but still able to move your crossslide and make sure they are clean and lubed with wheel bearing grease before tightening them up and you will get a smooth cut and finish on what your cutting . Hey I liked your video and it's good to see you doing something worth wild of doing. I started out watching my uncle and my father over 50 years ago they were professional machinist with lathes and milling machines . My uncle made fighter jet parts for a naval place just out of Jacksonville Florida. It was called N.A.R.F. it was a place for navy jets to be worked on like sabre jets when I went there and wow when I walked through that place with my uncle and my father and I was only around 8 years old I was amazed at all those jet fighter planes with all the tail find with painting of the squadron on them one had a bat flying by a yellow moon 🌕 and I even got to climb up a ladder and look in the cockpit of a sabre you know the ones that had the air intake in the front under the cockpit that was great moment in my like. Well anyway I became a machinist when I grew up and I'm now retired. You can become very wealthy being a machinist. My uncle was way past just being a millionaire. If you love machinist work work at and your math there is a lot of math in that job and now days it pays good money and if you got your own machinery and good at it you'll have it made my friend. I started off with small mini lathe s and milling machines and drill press and keep getting bigger and bigger and better machines . Like planting a seed and it keeps growing and before long it's turned into a big tree . Take care and I wish you the best of a future good luck
As someone with some experience on a real endmill and a drill press end mill I would like to correct a couple things. If you are milling steel you should be hitting it with cooling fluid every few seconds. Not once for the whole operation. Also, lock the drill press handle and don't touch it. Moving it up and down like that can cause side loads that can break bits. If you are doing it right you should see chips instead of the bits of metal dust. Take it slow and try again.
I think your drill press is capable of doing the job but I could see a lot of play in the vise. Have you tried to put shims in the gaps? You might also want to try milling with just the end of the bit the lowering it, locking the quill lock and making another pass. This will cause less pressure sideways on the bit and it should last longer.
I just bought the same xy vice he has, and they have updated it. You can now adjust the play or slop, out of it. I tried exactly what he did in the video, and it worked great.
+Tater79bj Hey thats great to hear! Also im glad they upgraded the vise because the one i have has some real issues. I think im gonna buy a nicer one from grizzly.
tighten all the gib screws , the vice can be made super solid
whats the point, its fkin junk, i got one. instantly taken back to the shop, went and got Proxxon KT150 WIN!
Güth Blades lol you moron, you have absolutely no clue what you are doing, it makes this even more ridiculous. But funny to watch ha ha ha ha ha
I think if you just needed to do a one-off or prototype, you could do it with hand tools. If you wanted to do anything at scale/automated, obviously you would need a proper end-mill.
Your honest appraisal is worth all! Great! Thank you very much!
Everyone is an expert on the keyboard. Matbe, - Just maybe, some of us don't have access to all the fancy tools and need to find a get around. This does just that .
No, it's likely to damage the drill, then you don't have a drill.
for this application I would have filed it and it would have taken less time.
Don't be a jerk
This was an example not the real thing
+Alec Guth you're being the jerk-a mill is not required for this type of project.
+Alec Guth sample or product makes no difference
This can work with decent results. The best thing to do is replace the bearings. That would improve things two fold. Fill the post up with concrete to minimize vibration. Check out a milling chart for spindle speed, then run approximately the same. Use the biggest end mill that will fit your work piece or chuck. If possible swap chuck for a collets.
I have been using a Barnes camelback for years now doing the same thing. The absolute mass of mine keeps it from vibrating.
Nonsense. I can assure you the runout on that drill chuck is not even close to milling tolerances. Then you can worry about the bearings. Better to buy a cheap Chinese mill.
Using 2 flute EM's on steel, even carbide, and going slow/lite cut is a sure way to break an endmill.
Thanks for the video, helpful indeed.
Yeah, the Morse Taper -> Jacobs taper aren't happy with latteral motion.
I'd love to have a vert. milling machine, but can't justify the cost even for a mini-benchtop one.
Having said that, I'm thinking about getting a used DP and replacing the stem, arbor, etc with a collet for holding milling bits.
Will still need to be gentle with the latteral movement as the bearings my get fkt.
I really only need it for soft stuff like alum. nylon, etc.
Anyway, nice vid. thanks for posting.
it would help tremendously if you tightened down the gibs so your vise jaws are not jumping up and down . You are just lucky you didn't break that end mill. You should have those ways the vises move in just tight enough so they slide. That't it.
I can certainly appreciate trying to make do with what you have. I certainly don’t have the money for a real mill. I would like to echo another comment: You want the tip to do the work for you and avoid cutting with the sides of the flutes. Keep improvising and overcome my friend.
i like it! using only the tool what we have, thanks man
So im new to garage milling too, and as such am not super knowledgeable with what types of speed and feed materials need on various machines with various tooling. However from the little that I've done with my setup that is somewhat similar AKA a drill press a cross vise and Bets I would suggest that instead of trying to do a combination of drilling and Milling at the same time dropped the amount you're trying to Mill out in one pass significantly. Lots of little passes following the same path. For the couple projects I've done I've only gone maybe an eighth of an inch at a time. And follow a conventional Milling path until you're comfortable with that before learning climb Milling. I had better luck pinning the drill chuck completely up or completely down instead of having to worry about the Chuck going up and down while controlling my feed path at the same time just my two cents. Good luck
If he would adjust the gibs in the milling vise it would be a big benefit
Looks like it is working.But I think the key is in the good milling bit (or whatever it is called).I need to make a channel in steel detail and definitely will try this.The problem will be to find good tool.And not too expensive as well :-).
Wish you success.And: safety first!
P.S some times places get rid of old machinist tools and machine that are not so big that small enough to get you going and usually for not much money just to get them out of the way. Because they got larger newer and more safistcated models so keep a lookout if you're interested in machinist work. Those old dinosaurs still do so fine work
don't move up and done,just let the mill do the job just use the tip
m8 ;)
You would have much better luck using a larger mill end than a smaller one...
I know this from experience as I did it on my old drill press with a HF 3 way vice after tightening it up alot...... the problem is the speed I used a 4 flute milling bit in the chuck
( a 3/8" one) to make a long slot for an alternator adjustment arm. the mill-end I used had
cutting edges on the bottom of it so I could plunge it ( got them from HF as well)
with the speed slow so I had more power I would plunge the web out and then turn up the speed to as high as it would go and nibble away at the dimples left and smooth the sides
now understand my drill press had alot of runout in it ... the bearings in the head were shot
but I still accomplished a milling job !.... but if I got the pressure wrong (too much pressure)
it would go into a harmonic that threatened to tear down the house ! .... although I never broke the bit it scared the heck out of me a few times !
my milling machine now is just a glorified heavy drill press and I cannot take any cuts more than a 1/16" or it will go into harmonic roaring because of the flex in the frame work
the mill is a home made affair that I used the milling head from a HF 3 in 1 mill drill lathe .
and a old shop smith lathe frame and a camper jack.... it works but not as good as I had hoped, it needs to be alot more solid to mill correctly.
I bought a small milling table for it that like the HF vice had to be tightened up and it works good now.
.....
necessity is the mother of invention ! there is always another way to do it !
.... I am convinced you can make a good mill from a strong drill press you just have to make it a whole lot stronger.... and locktight the morris taper drill chuck in !
Your video is informative for the poor man just starting out on the press. Don't cut on the return motion - just be careful not to use to much radial force on that press.
Nothing like a brain using critical thinking and ingenuity to get to where your minds eye is seeing an end result.
You’ll do great things Grasshopper!
Keep Tinkering
Hey did you do any modification to the chuck? Some guys claim the thing can fly off when you apply sideways pressure
I think you would be better off with a Dremel and some fine hand files. Using a drill press for this kind of operation will burn out the bearings in the drill. It's not designed to take lateral pressure like a mill is. You will never have any precision or even straight lines if you can't make your setup totally rigid like you can on a mill. Save your drill press and find another way.
I've been using a rhinofab an actual mill but rather that a 4 fluted bit will work better a bit more expensive and also I ran at about 10,000rpm the higher the better for mill bits and cutting oil is a must
to get the proper mill your looking at min of 2500 compared to 300 and this is by far an excellent alternative
Buy a good X-Y TABLE and additionally a milling vise. All X-Y vises are pretty much junk, or you will spend as much as you will for a cast iron milled and ground X-Y table with V ways and gibs, which is what you want anyway. The table and a clamping kit will let you hold much larger parts than a vise will. You still can only do small and light machining, but there is a very common use case for light machine work on larger parts. But if you go down this route you will identify other areas of the drill press that also need upgrading to make more precise and more rigid. These can be done cheaply but you will have to know what you are doing.
I'm just looking for an affordable way to make a fuller (some call it a blood groove) on a few knives. Any suggestions?
this guy really dont know what he is doing needs to tighten up the vice and make small passes and not try to cut on the return motion
You mean he should climb mill ? Lol
whats that blue stuff on the metal called?? i forgot :(
How did you keep the chuck attached? My reasoning is the taper isn't meant for side loading, and I've heard stories of them jumping off 🤔
Superglue? Blue or red locktite?
First thing I'd do is bolt the bloody drill press down solid!! What is it with you guys, SO many vids with machines of all types rockin' and a rollin' in the bench....
How did the chuck not immediately remove itself from the side loading?
😒 3 flute or 2 flute end Mills are always used for aluminum or Plastics 4 flute end Mills are for steals. Sometimes I use 12 flute end mills for high-speed finishing
If my boss saw me doing what you're doing first he would slap me in the face then he would fire me😨
Why? Because it is dangerous?
You can use 4 flute on Aluminum with coolant
@Joshua king And "you're" is the word you're looking for. 👍
"Steels"
How do you ensure the chuck doesn't drop out of the drill-press ram during machining type operations that don't maintain vertical pressure? I am concerned the simple, taper-fit friction may not hold the chuck secure with high frequency chatter and vibration of side cutting/milling.
You are right to be concerned. To mill effectively with a drill press the chuck should be replaced with a ER32 or ER25 to MT taper collet chuck with a drawbar behind it and make a clamping collar for the outside quill to collet chuck interface. A drill press can be made into an effective milling machine for light work but having a lathe already helps a great deal. With knowledge gains and a few parts made and a few more purchased I have been able to mill large and small parts safely and with rigidity and precision on my setup.
Good to know this can be done in a pinch. Saving a few more months for a $ mill is probably the best bet.
you did titghten the vice gibbs right? thats lot of slop that shoul be tightened up esily ceap or not and you absoluteky have to lock down the spindle otherwise eventually its going to fall out from sideoad and take your eye out
U need an older drill press, they don't make em like the used to anymore... I mill on my drill press for really big things with 1/2 + end mills & I mill on my cnc router for 1/2 & below. Also get a bigger nicer table/vise.
Tighten the Gibbs in the vise!
the bearing in your press sound unhappy
You are breaking bits because you go way to deep.. its supposed to take layer by layer slowly.
And these tables are amazing if you consider them to not be mill tables instead its a "cross vise" being able to drill alot of precis holes in 1 object without moving your vise and reclamping everything. Its trully amazing handy tool.
It can be handy for some simple milling project like myself i make the slots for spearguns (wood) and fine tune triggers and spears i make (stainless steel) but cutting in steel is a very slow process.
how do you lock the table solid from moving just bought the harb freight 16 speed, i lock it but still moves a little?
curtis haughton that's because it's China made and Harbor Freight sold you're not going to find anything made in China that is going to be a quality piece tooling
I couldn’t imagine giving this a try I seen the surface tilt a number of time which would end up costing me more money and time. If you are stuck on using this method to get by for now. Try a rotary tool with a drill press stand. I think it would work much better. The rotary tool has many different burs you could swap in and out for desired cuts.
Tell me what is a good x-y vice?
ive always wanted to mill on my drill ! ;P thanks for the insight buddy!
do not use a drill chuck for milling, is designed for vertical load not side load. You can use morse taper mills or a morse taper collet holder and cheap er16 collets
The drill press spindle is not appropriate for milling. The structure is loose and vibrates a lot. These cross vises are also shaky
can you replace the drilling bit with a mill bit?
Ahhh...aren't you suppose to use the end of the milling bit and not the side of the bit? I guess that's why it is called an end mill. The bite is t the tip of the bit so you need to start at the top of the piece and work your way down; like you are shaving the top each pass. The spiral on the bit is fore evacuating material as you cut, not to cut the material.
@Clifford Moeller Yeah your totally right the vise is crap and i mention that in the beginning of the video, I highly recomend that you try to save money on the x,y vise because you get what you pay for and a good vise will last several life times. The Drill press which is porta-cable is ok it does have some play in the quill if its not locked down using the depth screw this would work much better on an older more solid drill press. Thanks for the comment!
For a mill bit so small, this is all wrong. The speed too slow, the cut too deep on the bit. Even on a milling machine, this would be wrong.
I jigsaw and file would do a better job than ruining the drill press.
When milling you should not be going up and down you need to go in a bit and mill left to right then put the bit deeper lock it go left to right you are breaking bits because you are just doing it wrong regardless of the vice even with a perfect vice you shouldn't do it that way just trying to help
Please do some machine work before posting comments. Working with the end of the end mill is the best technique when you have a shaky setup or machine.
once youve drilled the 3 holes you could've just chiselled those bits off, thats what my engineer friend did .......it blew me away !! then just file any imperfections.
I use stone-cutting chisels all the time. Work great.
Is that all a milling machine does, cuts grooves ?
And facing, squaring, shaping etc..
This press has worked like a charm for my projects ruclips.net/user/postUgkxajoEbapTfqWaadnqb04h6U576yxXp-FE . I didn't even secure it to my table top, mainly due to the fact that I was using a 15 lbs drill vise. It's not flimsy at all as to what others have claimed it to be. Make sure the locking nuts and levers are secured and there won't be any issues with light pressure and patience. I was able to drill through aluminum, plastic, and steel (steel took a while) with no problems at all. Yeah it took a little longer than a regular drill press, but I don't have the space OR the money for one.The instruction manual was worthless, but luckily assembling the press was intuitive. However, the manual would be good for ordering replacement parts if needed. There is a nice breakdown of the parts that are included in the kit. Before ordering, make sure it is compatible with your unit, it is clearly stated what models the press is compatible with.This was an excellent purchase for $40!!
That is lateral material removal. It is really not even close to milling. A drill chuck is not for milling at all, that is what collets are for. I predict massive deflection.
That was painful to watch .
There are many pro and hobbyist machinist on RUclips , take the time to look around . Lots of tips , tricks , and the basics . Save up and buy a proper setup. An ol timer gave some words of wisdom when I was a pup. Half ass setups can only produce half ass work .
parallels are the risers of which you speak!
That is all great.
Except the drill press is not designed to bear lateral loads.
And that will screw up chuck, bearings, etc.
So you will get side play and your drilling work will lose precision.
How to ruin a chuck 101, by putting an endmill in it.
almost as fast as a file. 5 thousands would be a starting place for a pass and it might be too much for a duck tape rig. I mill in my drill press and it takes longer than any other method and is not as accurate. under a thousand will get you a mini mill and some tooling to do a proper job
The thing is you can spend $800 and not get much more tgan if you spent $100. This is a problem tool that's not made to strict specs.
hint: find small feed carriage for lathe on local scrap yard, after small repair you will have one feed axes with good tight ways, and handle with feed drum
put it on drill table, and tight with bolts -- maybe you will need some grinding to cut unneeded lugs, and make downside flat and stable
see here to understand about part I mean: ruclips.net/video/iTJVXA1zqZ4/видео.html
OK young man, save some dollars to get an Ameribrade 2x72 belt grinder and a Hougen magdrill (30lbs). dint know an XY vice is a thing, until i saw this. 2cents, Thanks.
Surely, {I know, don't call me surely!} a half decent file plus a whole heap of elbow grease would achieve the same result?....well, it does for me.
Drill presses are designed to handle vertical torque, whereas mills can handle sideways torque. Using an X-Y table on a drill press to position holes is a good idea, milling on the drill press is not. You can get good, relatively inexpensive, mini mills with high torque brushless DC motors from Micro Mark and Little Machine Shop. Don't waste your money on other mills with weaker motors from other vendors. And DON'T RUIN THE BEARINGS IN YOUR DRILL PRESS BY PUTTING SIDEWAYS PRESSURE ON THEM!
Why is your z axis not locked for passes? It's going to look like a dog chewed it up.
lol, with a mill bit, you don’t take it up and down to cut. Jus saying
Elevate part using parells
I feel like you would have better results if you use a file
need much more rotary speed. that's all. drill press cant provide such a speed we need for milling.
Your depth of cut is too deep for your setup. Ideally you should cut to a depth of maybe 30 thousandths and clean out the whole area. Then go back and keep making those .030 deep cuts until you are all the way through.
I.see all these guys on youtube trying to make 1/4" deep cuts all at ine time than saying the setup is junk or not ideal when it would work waaayyy better if they just did 0.2 mm passes they would be plesently surprised
will this work on the $50 harbor freight drillpress?
It will "work" on any drill press but for how long depends on the quality of the drill press. If you take apart the quill on one of those fifty buck HF ones you will find that the drive shaft down the center is barely 5/8" in diameter and the bearings are really light. Check out craigslist and e-bay for an old forties and fifties vintage drill press. You can find them for fifty to a hundred. They might need a bit of refurbishing but they are far tougher than the HF stuff.
The lightest milldrill will out perform this easily
Parallels are usually used when wanting to raise your part