Drill Press Cross-Feed Table

[etpm]

No-one said what the problem with round column mills was and I have no experience with them, but after reading about the Jacobs chuck damage due to side forces and a mention that round columns are a problem I put 1 and 2 together to figure out that with a round column the side forces are going to cause the cutter head to rotate around the column which means cutting a straight line will be very difficult. It just never crossed my mind until it was mentioned that round was a problem.

Some round column bench top mills have another problem that may not seem obvious until you use one. The quill will have only a limited amount of travel so if you are working on something that needs more travel than the quill has the head will need to be moved up or down. While doing this movement the head will also rotate a little bit one way or the other. When this happens you will lose your X and Y position.
When the head is in the proper position it is of course tightened to hold that position. On a decent machine the head should be able to resist even overloaded machining conditions. But cheap machines often are not able to do this.
As a machinist with over 40 years experience machining I somehow became a machinist. I'm not sure when exactly it happened but it apparently it did. I mean I can make good parts most of the time. Since I am calling myself a machinist, and since I'm retired, it seems to me that I should be willing to answer machining questions. So, if anyone here has machining questions, and if they ask me, I'll endeavour to answer them. Like any skill, when first starting questions will need to be asked and answered. I encourage this. I have seen lots of excellent work done by hobbyists. It doesn't matter what somebody is interested in. It takes practice and learning. So if you want to try something new just try it out. Ask questions. Make some mistakes and learn from them. Try whatever you want. Except maybe surgery. Or controlled building demolition. Or Saturn 5 Rocket Boosters.
Eric

 

[3Ts]

I'll take you up on that. It might be appropriate to start a different thread on this and I'll link it once I get it started.

Here's the thread:

New thread on machining

 

[Jims1025R]

I have two mills, one round column, the other ways, otherwise, very similar. The round column machine was fine, other than if you had to raise the head, it invariably rotated a little, and you lost your XY. It did have the advantage that you could swing the head off to the side, and mill the end of something long, clamped off the side of the table. I did that a few times, and appreciated the versatility. What you get one way, you lose the other.

MT3 spindle mills are fine, as long as the spindle has a draw bar too. That way, you can use MT3 collets with the draw bar, or MT3 drills or a chuck. Very handy - but no end mills in a chuck, even if drawn up. Chucks may not be concentric enough, and you'll abuse the end mill turning it a few thou off center. It may seem to work, but it's Flintstone.

 

[CalG]

On the distraction of the round column mills

When I was young......

I had a RongFu round column bench mill. That thing made me a lot of money poking holes in aluminum investment castings.

But, every time the head needed raising or lowering (like to change tools) Tram was lost. What a ROYAL PIA!

Call em, nifty HD bench press drills, but when milling, they take a lot of additional time.

I wasn't sad when I sold it. Better machines can do that same work. bnut there is always the "why tie up a $6000 machine when a $300 machine will do the task.

Plus, labor can be had cheap to run that class of machinery. Wait! College was expensive!

(my son, now with a son of his own about that age ;-)

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I can honestly say I haven't detected any movement in my Solberga drill press because of it's round column,

I think I could do some light milling on it, if I wanted.

SR

 

[CalG]

I can honestly say I haven't detected any movement in my Solberga drill press because of it's round column,

I think I could do some light milling on it, if I wanted.

SR

Isn't it nice to have more than one! ;-)

I don't have a gear head, but the Rockwell is on a VFD with a 3 hp motor. There is plenty of grunt at low rpms for drilling 1 inch holes in steel .

 

[jwmorris]

Intermittent cuts on steel using a drill press as a mill, if you buy a real mill first you will save the $800 you have budgeted for an X/Y table and won’t destroy your drill press.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Isn't it nice to have more than one! ;-)

I don't have a gear head, but the Rockwell is on a VFD with a 3 hp motor. There is plenty of grunt at low rpms for drilling 1 inch holes in steel .

Yes it is, I in fact have "five" floor models, with the pictured gear head Solberga being my biggest one.

Do I need five floor model drill presses? NO, but I'm a tool junkie that just can't seem to turn down FREE or almost FREE tools!

Like yesterday, I brought home two electric chain hoist!

SR

 

[SamO]

GO SLOW AND use SHALLOW CUTS!!!! Most drill press chucks are held on by a Morse taper. If you take a deep cut with your end mill it is very possible the chuck and taper will twist off and if they wind up on the floor you may have to buy a new end mill. Mills and mill/drills use an R8 collet (they have a keyway built in) to prevent that from happening.

 

[swines]

Just to close this out. I called the drill press manufacturer and talked with one of their techs and explained what I wanted to do. He said they expect people will use accessories like spindle drum sanders which would have more lateral load than a 1/4-inch end mill, and for what I wanted to do I should have no problems. Through a friend, I found a gentleman who had a really old Troyke cross slide that he wasn't using and loaned it to me. It all worked just fine, the drill press isn't damaged, I didn't break any end mills, and I returned the Troyke today. Sorry to disappoint all of those who were so sure it would end in disaster, the machine would be totally ruined, the chuck would fall on the floor, there would be an earthquake, a tidal wave, etc. Now you can post that I was just "lucky."

Or, it could be that I knew exactly what I was doing, how to do it, and the limitations of the machine...naaaah...the experts here will tell me I was just lucky. I can hardly wait for all of those posts...

 

[swines]

Smart ass. Reckon that’s why you once owned a machine shop and don’t anymore.

No. I was traveling over 150,000 miles a year as part of the business. I ended up in the hospital with deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms. I decided I didn't need to kill myself to make a living. Too difficult for you to understand?

 

[Clintock]

What’s difficult to understand is since you’re so smart and know everything there is to know about milling why the hell you’d come here and ask questions and get legitimate answers just to be a dick and tell folks they don’t know what they’re doing. Glad it all worked for you and you get to tell folks told ya so. As for the other, oh well....

 

[swines]

Why are you being so arrogant? And why are you asking on a Tractor Forum?

I asked a very simple question. Did anyone have a recommendation for a cross-slide table? Nothing more. Instead, I got a lot of answers not related to that question. I tried to make it really clear that I understood exactly the limitations of the machine and also clearly understood the processes I was going to do. I got very little help and a lot of attitudes that I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't post on a machining forum because those guys are more interested in higher-end machining and its tools and processes. That's not what this question was about. It would be like me going to a broadcast video forum and asking what video camera someone would recommend for making videos of my dogs.

 

[swines]

What’s difficult to understand is since you’re so smart and know everything there is to know about milling why the hell you’d come here and ask questions and get legitimate answers just to be a dick and tell folks they don’t know what they’re doing. Glad it all worked for you and you get to tell folks told ya so. As for the other, oh well....

I don't know everything. I haven't been near a machine shop in 35 years. Haven't looked for machining equipment in 40 years. I was hoping someone might actually have a relevant piece of information. I asked a very simple question, and instead of getting the answer to that question I got told every reason anyone could think of that I couldn't make it work, I would ruin the machine, etc. etc. TWO people gave me leads on potential cross-slide tables out of all of the posts. I was looking for an answer. Yup, YOU got my number alrighty, I certainly came to the wrong place and I won't make that mistake again. You've convinced me.

 

[etpm]

Good for you, you borrowed possibly the finest cross slide accessory. How much did the Troyke weigh? My 12 inch Troyke cross slide rotary table is so heavy I use a crane attached to a rolling bench to put it on the mill. It is way too heavy for me to lift. I have never seen a Troyke cross slide but I'm not surprised they made them. What size is the one you borrowed? Oh, just for curiosity, what brand is the drill press?
Thanks,
Eric

 

[jwmorris]

I didn't post on a machining forum because those guys are more interested in higher-end machining and its tools and processes. That's not what this question was about.

There actually was not a question in the OP at all, first question mark you used was in #14 after you received responses you didn’t want.

You said not “high precision work” but never did say what tolerance you were trying to hold. Best we could surmise from what you have written is that “very high precision” means a tenth of a thousandth, to you and “bandsaw“ precision is three thousandths.

Being specific about your needs would have been more productive than arguing on the internet…

If anyone has purchased or used a cross-feed table and has recommendations I would appreciate the information.

You did get recommendations, at least one of the folks poo poo’ing the idea had already been down the road of using an X/Y table on a drill press, in a milling fashion. I still have one that I use with an edge/center finder to line up center punched drill locations.

That said, I also have another pretty good drill press that I got for free after the spindle was broken, from using it as a mill, and I took it apart and repaired the break and it’s as good or better than new now. So the outcome of such undertaking hasn’t always been negative, for me.