mill?

[trw]

hello folks, i was wondering where i can pick up a good mill or some sort of setup to make custom peices for vehicles, im not sure if its a mill that does that but thats what i remember it as lol something that can carve out anything i would need out of aluminum.....more insight would be appreciated.

[HRDforever]

get a cnc mill! I use one at my school...search for spectralight machines or light achines on google. Then look for the machine with the product number i think ... 0020

[baih]

www.sherline.com

[trw]

those miniature ones are EXACTLY what im looking for, although i cant find a price :confused:

[murphy3688]

http://www.sherline.com/8540pg.htm the mini cnc's from sherline are 2500-3000 bucks.

[Mystracing]

Those Sherline machines are sweeeeet, if you have money to burn. On top of the 3 grand for the CNC mill you'll need $500 - $1000 worth of tooling before you'll be making the parts you want, so you better figure on shelling out 4 grand if your going to go that route.

If you don't have money to burn, here are some things you probably want to take into consideration. I don't mean this to sound spiteful, though I'd admittedly be jealous of someone with a full CNC Sherline setup. Just so you'll know where I'm coming from I did what our thinking about doing. I'm not a machinist and have no desire to be one, but here's some thoughts from my experience.

The first thing you need to figure out is what your going to do with it. CNC, particularly a commercial CNC system doubles or more the cost of a machine like that. If your making single parts, like I do, CNC is an unneccesary luxury. The only thing a CNC machine will do that can't be done on a manual machine "easily" is cutting contours. Meaning strange shaped arcs and releifs. If your not doing production duplicating parts, and don't need to make a lot of strange shaped cutouts which are usually done for appearence purposes instead of a real need, then you don't need CNC capability. The time to make a single part on a CNC machine is probably as long if not longer than doing it manually depending on the part.

You definately need to factor in the cost of other equipment needed to do what you want to do. When a new shiny mill shows up it isn't capable of doing much, usually it isn't capable of doing anything because it doesn't even come with an end mill. You'll immediately want collets, edge finders, end mills, end mill holders, a machinist vice, and angle vice, dye, scribes, calipers, dial gauges, rotary table, and that's just naming a few of the accessories you'll decide you need. You'll also need a metal cutting saw of some sort. A hacksaw will get real old the first time you cut a 1/4" aluminum plate down to a 4" x 4" piece. I bought a chop saw for regular stock and a bandsaw for cutting plate etc.

Another thing that needs deep consideration is he size of the parts you want to make. You’re best bet is to figure the workable size on a small machine is about half of the advertised size. The reason is in order to mill a part it has to be mounted on the milling table with something. The vice or clamps take up space. What you’ll discover is if you want to mill something 4” across on the y axis and the y axis movement is 5” you’ll have to do multiple setups to pull it off. The price turned me away from the Sherlin stuff rite off the bat, it was too much money for tinkering around with a hobby for me. That said I have a mill, as mentioned above, and I have serious doubts about the Sherline being big enough for a MT or 1/8th shock tower. I also have some questions about the weight and rigidity of the sherline, I get some pretty good tool chatter going from time to time and my machine is double the size, over 150 pounds, and much more rigid in appearance than the Sherline machines. My Y axis travel is 9 ¼” and I had to do multiple setups on my truggy shock towers a couple times, on my mill because of bad planning, on the Sherline it would happen because of the machines capacity.

This is already a book, so I’m not even going to attempt to type everything I would tell you in person in this post, but you definitely need to do some serious research before you do anything.

My mill is a Seig X2 varient from harbor Freight, they run in the $500 to $600 range, but you ought to figure a grand because of necessary tooling. The following site will give you tons of info on the Seig X2 varients. I’ve been very happy with mine. They can be converted to CNC for around $400 assuming you own a computer. The page on this site about the mill tooling is invaluable. I also have a Seig 7X10 now converted to 7X14 Mini Lathe and absolutely love it.

http://www.mini-lathe.com

Another pair of machines you might give some consideration to are the Taig machines. They’re closer to the Sherline in size, but much less expensive. You can find them at;

http://www.taigtools.com

A couple things in closing. IMO a professional mechanic need Snap On or some other brand of high dollar tools because they are used constantly. It’s pointless for a guy that does no automotive work beyond changing his oil and general maintenance to buy a $4000 snap on tool set when a $300 craftsman set will do just fine for the limited use.

And lastly here’s a picture of my Hyper 7 converted to a truggy. I made the shock towers, wheel extenders, servo plate, modified the diff gear to handle a bigger spur etc.

http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/TR34.JPG

http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/TR37.JPG

http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/TR38.JPG

http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/TR31.JPG

Just thought I should add this because someone that owns a Sherline will probably get bent over this post. There's no doubt the Sherline is higher quality than the others, but it doesn't make a better part it just looks better doing it. The downfalls of the lower quality unit are easiy compensated for by using good machining practices. If you don't use good machining practices the Sherline won't do good work, and the seig will do horrible work.

[Mystracing]

Here's a picture of my mill and the top 3 drawers of the tool chest it's mounted on to give you an idea of what I'm talking about in terms of needing tools and accessories to go along with it. This is about 3/4th's of what I have for it, and there's still a long list of stuff I'd like to have.

http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/MILL01.JPG
http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/MILL02.JPG
http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/MILL03.JPG
http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/MILL04.JPG
http://www.rc10gthobby.com/~mystracing/MILL05.JPG

[Maxxcrazy]

I have a sherline lathe converted to a mill. Go to www.thesherlineshop.com for a full list of machines and accessories. Any of the mills on that site would be great for RC purposes. I like having the lathe converted to a mill because you can convert back to a lathe by only removing two screws and it only costs about $50 more than a mill.

Some accessories you would want (if you get the sherline) would be a vise, clamps, collet set, 3/8" end mill holder, fly cutter and end mills. All are availible on the site I mentioned above.

Heres what mine looks like
http://www2.mini-zracer.com/albums/Maxxcrazy/DSCF0136.jpg

[Maxxcrazy]

Mystracing, I just read your post, heres some numbers for you.

Mill:

Weight: About 50-60lbs without tooling
Y Travel: About 17"
X Travel: 4" (Mills have double)
Z Travel: 6"

Lathe:

Weight: 40lbs
Size: 3.5x17"

It is true that a Sherline is a lot smaller than most mills, but with patience and accuratly reposistioning the part, you can make much bigger parts than you would think.

Also, don't mind the drill chuck in the picture I posted, I now have a set of end mill holders.

[trw]

thanks for your posts very much.

the first mill on the site maxxcray posted i can afford in a short while, at first I was wondering if all mills ran over 1k and was thinking maybe i should just stick to cutting bits on my dremel.

anyhow, thanks a ton guys.

next thing id like to know is material, the metal i want to work with is mostly aluminum maybe steel here and there.....could i pickup blocks of this stuff at a local hardware store?

[Maxxcrazy]

Depends on your hardware store. But almost all of them don't list the grade, alloy, temper, etc. Most of the aluminum you will see at hardware stores is 2011 or 2024, which are not good for RC parts. You'll be better off with ordering online, then you'd know exactly what you are getting. www.mcmaster.com

Look at the 5000A on that site I gave you in my other post. It comes with most of the accessories you'll need.

[Duster_360]

Here's an online metals shop specializing in small quanities for the "home hobbyist". Metal by composition, grade and shape. You won't find this kind in a hardware store. Most of the stuff in hdw store is the lowest grade available. I've bought alum rod to work and the hdw store was way too soft. Had some 6061 given to me that solved that prob.

Most of my metal work is gun related and rightnow I only have a lathe - chambering rifles, cutting and finishing barrel blanks for competition. I have no room left but would like to eventually get a mill. Most of my work is 516L or other grades of stainless steel, so the mill would need to be full size and I just don't have the room right now.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/

[Mystracing]

I use Online Metals as well I really like them.

Maxxcrazy - No offense intended, I wanted the sherline initially, but I was looking for a lathe not a mill and the 7X10 was just so dang cheap, and it has a power feed and cuts threads withouot another attachment. I'm probably just over sensitive to machine size because I made a huge mistake on my lathe and bought one that was too short. With a 3/8" drill in the tailstock I had about 1 1/2" between the three jaw chuck and the end of the bit on the 7X10 lathe. So much for thier theoretical 10" working length. Fortunately there was an extension kit available that lengthened the bed 6.25 inches, but it cost me $150 and a day in the shop converting it. When I bought the mill I pretty much just bought the companion to the lathe I already owned. You have more table movement than I thought, that's definately a good thing.

The real point I was trying to get across overall was just to do some research and figure out what you really need / want. Don't make a $150 mistake like I did on my lathe, or worse if a mill is too small. There are so many factors a person should take into consideration including the stuff above, tooling cost, tooling availability, initial cost, etc. Regardless of what machine a person is looking at, it would be more than worth their time to read the info about the different mills and look at the tooling etc. Also ask questions here, you lucked out and got owners of a couple different machines on this thread. Wish I had had some help like that up front.

On the drill chuck, I wouldn't give you hard time about that, if you look at the picture of my mill it also has a drill chuck in it. Don't really know why, I just got in the habit of putting the chuck back in when I clean up. Though I'll admit I've chucked up an end mill in that chuck more than once when I was working on aluminium and feeling lazy.

[Maxxcrazy]

None taken. I've held an end mill in the drill chuck before, out of pure lazyness, I've even held a center in there when I was using the lathe.