Subject: Re: Mill or Lathe w/Mill Attachment

From: "Chris Marlow" <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 Dec 1996 13:15:02 GMT

Hi Bob.

I use a the Lathe and the vertical milling coulomb for small turning and
milling
small parts for the Helicopters that I own and fly. 

If you are going to be doing a lot of Milling then get the Mill. If it is
only occasional
type milling then the Mill Colombo is the best bet. You are right. It is a
fast change
over from Lathe to Mill. 

The Shirline machines are remarkable. The quality is very good. You will
not be sorry
if you buy one.

Hope this helps. Chris.

Bob Stout <[email-masked]> wrote in article
<[email-masked]>...
> This may be answered best by Jim Harvey but I will throw it out here
> anyway. I am looking at Sherline's Mill and Lathes for doing small,
> light machining of plastic and aluminum components used in my electronic
> projects. I know in the long run I could utilize both a mill and a lathe
> but finances at the moment force me to look at one or the other. My
> question is: Has anyone used the Sherline Vertical Milling Column
> attachment (3050,3480)on the 4000/4400 lathes (for milling purposes of
> course)and if so, is it a viable alternative to buying the Vertical
> Mill? Sherline says it's a fast changeover. I could settle for this
> until I could afford the rest of the Milling machine (prolly the 5400).
> Any more feedback or caveats on Sherline products would also be
> appreciated.
> 
> Bob Stout
>

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From: [email-masked] (Robert Nichols)
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 04:23:08 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Felice Luftschein & Nicholas Carter <[email-masked]> wrote:
:Since everyone seems to agree that the milling column is only good for small 
:work, has anyone used the sherline milling machine, as a lathe, by making a 
:toolpost which sits on the table, and turning the head horizontal? It seems 
:large wheels and short turnings could be accomplished, although the lack of 
:the tailstock would be limiting. 

Yes, I've done that, ... once.  It works for simple turning, and can
even handle some parts too large for the swing of the lathe.  Without
the horizontal milling base (which I do have) you've got a very limited
useful longitudinal feed.  Of course the lack of a tailstock is going to
limit the length of what you can turn anyway.  You can use almost
anything for a tool holder since you have the extra degree of freedom of
cranking the head up and down.  (I was using a Unimat SL1000 tool holder
clamped in the milling vise.  It was adequate for aluminum.)

The big problems are (a) the reaction from the tool may put stresses
on the mill table that it wasn't intended to handle, and (b) no lathe
accessory other than a chuck is going to be readily useful without a
lot of assistance from Mssrs. Rube & Goldberg.

I think that milling in the lathe, as long as you can live within the
size and rigidity limits, would work out better than the other way
around.

-- 
Bob Nichols         [email-masked]
Finger [email-masked] for PGP public key.
PGP public key 1024/9A9C7955
Key fingerprint = 2F E5 82 F8 5D 06 A2 59  20 65 44 68 87 EC A7 D7

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From: [email-masked] (Chuck Sherwood)
Date: 5 Dec 1996 18:31:04 GMT

Discussion about using a mill as a lathe deleted...

I have been comtemplating using my Sherline mill horizontally to crown
a pulley/flywheel. I was thinkin alone these lines....

Rotate the motor horizontially.
Mount pulley/flywheel on a short stubshaft and hold in chuck.
Hold the other end if necessary using the tailstock intended to be used
with the rotary table when same is used vertically.

Mount toolpost on rotary table such that it gives the desired radius. 
This would require the table to go under the pully and consequently a
pretty tall tool post. I think the tall tool post for use with the riser
blocks might do it.

Adjust Z axis so that tool is on centerline of pulley.

Crown pulley by turning rotary table.
What do you guys think??

chuck sherwood
[email-masked]
-- 
--
Chuck Sherwood
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 4 Dec 1996 21:28:23 GMT

If you can purchase a complete lathe, and then buy the mill with out the
motor assembly, you can have the best of both worlds just by removing the
spindle and motor (one screw) and installing it on the other machine. This
would save you the cost of the duplicate spindle motor. 

Just a thought, no one has mentioned it. It will still be more costly than
the lathe with milling column.

Bill

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From: [email-masked](J.A.Harvey)
Date: 3 Dec 1996 22:09:50 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Chuck
Sherwood) writes: 
...snip...
>
>I asked Jim a similar question a while back. His advice to me was that
>he thought it was better to buy the small mill (or the xyz table and
>share the motor) than to try and mill on your lathe. You are just too
>limited in size. 
>
>My personal experience after buying the mill is that the money you
spend
>on the mill is only a start. You will spend LOTS more on tooling
>for the mill than the cost of the mill. Collets, endmills, flycutters
>boring tools, screw machine drill bits, etc, all cost money and Im
sure
>that I spent lots more on these than the mill itself. 

I still believe that you are much better off with a real milling
machine than a vertical mill table for your lathe. I think that the
setups are much simpler, and easier to perform, as well as the ability
to work on a larger piece. I am sure that there are people who do
excellent milling on their lathe and might argue with me, but my
experience has been that milling in the lathe is generally a big pain
in the ***.

Chuck is right too when he say that you are going to spend more on the
accessories than the machine itself. This is true for ANY machine that
you own ( except perhaps a shaper ), Lathes require live centers , half
centers , knurling tools, dial indicators, etc. the mill is the biggest
accessory hog thoug. You can eeasily spend 3x - 5x the cost of the
machine in tooling.

What is right for you? You have to know what you intend to work on.
Just remember, if it swings 3" one day you'll need to cut 3.5". Just
MURPHY'S law I guess.

Jim Harvey
[email-masked]
http://hre.com

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From: [email-masked](J.A.Harvey)
Date: 3 Dec 1996 22:19:25 GMT

>Any more feedback or caveats on Sherline products would also be
Bob:

I responded to Chuck Sherwoods article and then found this  ( the
original!).

Here is my take on the question you pose. I have used the SHERLINE
VERTICAL MILLING TABLE and I can attest that it is a well made
accessory. However, I do not think that it is as versatile as a milling
machine ( obviously ) You are limited in the size of the part that can
be milled, and locating and affixing the part to be milled is a fair
challenge. If you only need to occassionally mill a small slot or
chamfer, this might be a viable alternative to owning a mill. 

My personal feeling on milling in the lathe is "why Bother?" Of course,
I ahve several milling machines so that might not really be a fair
assessment. I DO konw that many people do excellent and extensive
milling in thier lathes. However, they have invested a lot of time and
effort to make special attachments and fixtures to make this practice
easier.

SHERLINE is right as the time to change over the table is minimal, but
unless you are willing to accept the small size of the vertical milling
table, you might be better off with the Mill Head conversion.

If I can be of any other help, please feel free to just ask.

Jim Harvey
[email-masked]
http://hre.com

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From: Kevin Meier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 10:20:32 -0500

> accessory hog thoug. You can eeasily spend 3x - 5x the cost of the

I don't really know if I am doing something wrong, but I find that it
is almost too expensive to do much milling in my lathe.  I have a 9"
Logan and what I think is an Atlas milling attachment.  The milling
attachment has a tendency to move around on me which has a disturbing
tendency to whack off the teeth of end mills. I got some solid carbide
ones, high quality, and fortunately they didn't cost me much. They
break up much quicker than the HSS ones.  They don't seem to like the
abuse and vibration.

On the second point. I talked to my father-in-law about this.  He
supervises in a shop which uses 5-axis machining centers and multiple
spindle slant bed lathes, well into 6-figure machines. He tends to
agree even for these machines, that they end up spending around as much
for the tooling as for the machine itself, maybe not 3-5x but really
substantial anyway.

	Kevin Meier

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Brooks)
Date: 6 Dec 1996 19:20:10 GMT

For me, I started with a Taig, then got their vertical milling fixture 
(way too small), then went with the Sherline mill.  I've starting doing
stuff that's too big on the Sherline, so now I have a mill-drill.  At
this rate, I'll have a Cinncinatti in a few years.  :-)

Seriously, the main limitation on the column is size.  If you can live
with it, you'll be OK, but IMHO, buy the biggest mill you can afford.
The Sherline 5400 is definately a good bet.  (If I hadn't gone with the
mill-drill, I'd have purchased the horizontal milling widget.)

Pete Brooks