A new arrival in Arnold's shop

[arnoldb]

I've been saving up for quite a while now to buy a milling machine...

This one's been standing for sale for the last six months in a local shop; I've seriously joked with the shop owner that it was waiting for me. Well, I broke the bank, added some credit, re-negotiated pricing and discounts, and was finally able to bring it home today. As part of the package, I added a clamping kit, small vise, and a collet chuck set (that will arrive next week)

This is a nice biggish machine; 800 x 240mm table with 500mm X travel and 175mm Y travel with dovetail column. Spindle nose to table is 450mm max. There is some minor surface rust on the table top and on some other bare-metal surfaces, but all the slide ways are clean of rust, and looks like they have been scraped.

I'll make my own stand for it; I have a good amount of suitable heavy material on my scrap pile, and I can get a well-made and reasonably priced coolant tray locally.

More new machining skills to learn :big: :big:

Regards, Arnold

 

[tel]

Nice one Arnold, you got a whole new learning curve in front of you now.

 

[bearcar1]

Say that is a handsome looking machine you got your hands on Arnold. You won't want to go to bed for weeks! :big: Glad to hear that you were able to 'negotiate' the cost down somewhat, even it it did include mowing the guys lawn for the next 20 years Rof} I for one can't wait to see what you're going to turn out with that bad boy. Shoot, I'm even excited, I better go back down to the shop and continue my PIA job for my friend project. (eight wheels/tires (two sets) for his 1930's vintage American Flyer trains.

Best regards

BC1
Jim

 

[Maryak]

Arnold,

Good one. :bow: I hope you have many years of enjoyment from it.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[CrewCab]

Good one mate ;D ;D ............ you are going to have some serious fun now 8) plus a big tooling bill

Enjoy, look forward to sharing your experiences 8)

CC

 

[Deanofid]

Nice one, Arnold! I'll bet you'll really enjoy having separate machines for milling and turning.

Dean

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Congratulations Arnold. You're going to like having a mill.

 

[deere_x475guy]

Arnold, I had one of those for 4 years. I am sure you will get a lot of use out of it.o.

 

[cfellows]

Uh Oh, Arnold, your life is changed forever. You'll be scratching your head wondering how you ever got along without this dandy machine. And, there is no end to the number of parts and pieces you can buy for it.Congrats!

Chuck

 

[GailInNM]

Congratulations Arnold.
It may not make you work any better for a while until you get used to having it, but it sure will make it a lot easier and faster.
Gail in NM

 

[bentprop]

Good one,Arnold.I have the same machine,and it has served me well for about 5 years already.I made a power feed for the table,using a windscreen wiper motor,but that may be in for a bit of a revamp shortly.
Just as an aside,it may pay to give it a bit of a run in.Switch to the second low speed setting,and let it run for about an hour.Check that the motor doesn't get too hot.
Then drain the oil(the plug is in a quite awkward place on the back bottom of the "head".
Refill with iso 68,and you're ready to cut metal.

 

[Twmaster]

What's the make and model number on that Arnold? I cannot quite read that info in your photo.

 

[arnoldb]

Thank you Tel, I'm really looking forward to the new learning! - have to keep my brain cell occupied.

Thanks Jim, I managed to keep an open mind, even with the _very_ pretty young lady sitting behind the counter, but I draw the line at mowing lawns; I abhor garden work. Sounds like you're busy on an interesting PIA project

Both Bobs - Thanks; I intend to have this machine last me a very long time.

CC, thanks mate; the machine needs some TLC first, then I'll bore all the members with a new project ;D

Thanks Dean, and yes, I'm sure I'll love having the two separate machines for work. But I'm not putting the files away too far

Zee, thank you; and yes, I'm pretty sure I'll like love it!

Chuck, thanks; like you said . With my budget blown, it will be a while before I can buy more tooling, so I'll just have to make things as I go along. Well... OK... I'll admit it :-[ - I actually LIKE making tooling as well

Gail, thank you; you've hit it on the nail. you dialed that cut dead-on I'm under no illusion that any amount of tooling will make for better results; it's all in the operator's hands and mindset. So a lot of learning for me!

Hans, thank you for the heads-up on the run-in. The oil level indicator does not show any oil in the gearbox; unless it's below level; I'll check today with a dip stick to see. If there's no oil in there, I'll first put in some cheap gearbox oil & let it run a while, then drain and flush and put in good oil. You're right about the drain plug being in an awkward place - I see a right mess coming up... Do you know how much oil it takes ? - I can't find any indication in the manual

Mike, it's a Chinese machine with no name I can find. Model number is ZAY7045FG; looks like it is a clone of the Rong Fu RF 45 mill - Here is the South African distributed machine I have and here an Australian one

Regards, Arnold

 

[Twmaster]

Thanks Arnold, Looks like I found your factory...

http://www.yuejian.com.cn/product.asp?id=411

 

[Artie]

Hey Arnold, great stuff. Thats a different name but the same machine as I pilot. All round good thing! Although my gear train is a bit clunky, its a really good machine. The best mod I came up with was power feed on the x axis, although I spent 2 hours on it today and hardly used it.

Dro is next... it all costs unfortunately...

Combine it with the basic tooling and a RT and there will be no stopping you.

Cheers and enjoy...

Artie

 

[SBWHART]

Nice buy Arnold

The mill will be a great addition to your shop, and open up a whole range of machining opportunities.

Enjoy your mill and have fun.

Stew

 

[ariz]

wow Arnold, very good choice on the mill!

I have a similar mill, the ZAY7025FG, smaller than yours, and I can assure you that they are great machines!

very happy for you, I wish you the best time in the shop with your new equipment

 

[arnoldb]

Thanks for the link to the factory Mike

Thanks Artie - I'll be cobbling together an x-feed as well; once I've gotten a feel for the machine. As to an RT, I'll be cobbling together one of those as well; they are very expensive, and I have some material... And DRO..... In my dreams ;D - but one day!. Funny; this mill's gearbox is very quiet, but I've not run it under load yet, so that might change.

Stew, Thank you ;D - I'm sure I'll be having a LOT of fun!

Thanks for the feedback Ariz ;D - having seen what you can do with your mill gives me some more good feelings about having made a good choice of machine.

Well, my weekend was wasted spent behaving in a fashion more suited to someone half my age, i.e. partying, so I only started building the stand yesterday.

I had a couple of industrial pallet shelving beams on my scrap pile, and figuring that as these were originally used to keep pallets full of milk and frozen chicken each weighing in excess of one ton stored, it would be suitable for the stand.
After lots of bandsawing and welding together, and a coat of a favourite blue shade of paint, the stand is finished. The paint should be dry enough tomorrow for me to put the mill on it:

I bought the clamping kit for the mill, but it found it's first use on the drill press; I drilled 16mm mounting holes for the mill in the stand frame before welding on the feet. Photo after the fact - just showing how the pieces of clamping kit was used on the drill press:

Just after I finished painting the stand, I received a phone call that the collet chuck has arrived. So I went and fetched it, and immediately saw that the draw-bar that came with the mill would not work for it. So I made a pit-stop for some 12mm high-tensile threaded rod. On getting home, I measured for and made up the draw-bar - here the top end of the draw bar and the chuck set:

I'd just like to point out that I got the high tensile threaded rod for the drawbar NOT because of a need for strength in tightening, but for the thread strength that would be needed for the light taps that would be needed after releasing it about one turn to tap out the chuck from the morse taper of the mill. As to tightening, I really don't think more than 1/8 of a turn with a spanner would be needed after firmly inserting the chuck in the spindle and hand-tightening the drawbar... I might be wrong though; if any members with experience of this can offer suggestions, I would be grateful.

Regards, Arnold

 

[Omnimill]

Very nice Mill Arnold! Thm: Don't tell me how much it was, I'll only be sick.

Vic.

 

[arnoldb]

Vic, Thanks ;D I won't tell then, except that you can get a quote in the UK where you live and nearly double that to get to what I had to pay here in Namibia

This morning involved heavy lifting; fortunately it was fairly light work ;D :

Once the mill was on the stand, I could not resist trying it out...
So I set up a very simple machining exercise, and went for it. Mill speed set to 720 rpm for the 12mm cutter, a bold depth of cut, and crank it and look at the chips coming off to see if my feed rate is OK. Worked a treat ! ;D
First cut made - and unfortunately no prizes to anybody that can guess what I'm making as first milling practice!:

If you guessed T-Nuts, you were spot on; I need some for mounting the vise... Not a pretty job by any means, but it should do for now:

The first disappointment with my purchase also happened. The machine is fine; the spindle runs at much less than 0.005 mm run-out according to my trusty Mitotoyo DI. The jacobs taper on MT4 to jacobs adapter runs at 0.01mm which is acceptable- sort of. But the 16mm drill chuck that came with it is a load of crap. First off, the key does not fit properly and the run-out when chucking a known good bit of 12mm silver steel in it is 0.1mm !! The silly chuck can also only go down to 3mm - that is Waaay too big, so I guess I'll be investing in a good 1-16mm Rohm chuck for the machine in a couple of months.... OUCH on the pocket but oh so worthwhile!

Regards, Arnold