Milling clamp for South Bend lathe, what do I do?

[Shipdisturber]

I have a 1942 South Bend lathe with maybe one hundred hours of total use based on it's condition. I have been looking to come up with a milling machine by turning my drill press into one. My lathe came with a milling attachment that I cleaned up and painted, what I want to know is what do I use to hold my parts to machine with

this thing?

 

[bazmak]

Looks like you have a bolt/clamping slide.If you bolt on a small vise the projection will just increase chatter etc
Best option if you can is to make a new slide with combined vise. Or you can machine down the the 2 fixed jaws
and make/buy a miniature vise.I would try to make a new slide and vise combination but for that you will need a mill
Second thoughts,can you machine away the top fixed jaw and make a new sliding jaw keeping the existing fixed jaw

 

[Shipdisturber]

What do you mean by make a new slide?

 

[Shipdisturber]

Any pictures of what you mean please.

 

[10K Pete]

You are supposed to clamp your work with those two screws using whatever you want for a moving jaw or packing... It holds very tightly. Nothing else needed!

Pete

 

[Shipdisturber]

My machining is normally tiny parts and lining things up in that is a skill I don't have. Yes I have done that but also not everything will fit between those jaws. Any kind of a jig I can make for it?

 

[goldstar31]

I'm sorry to disagree with the comment which rubbishes the vertical slide but would respectfully point out that MOST model engineers only possessed a vertical slide and vice. Before all that happened, people held work on the faceplate and machined from there.

I think that you would be surprised to obtain Lawrence Sparey's book the Amateurs Lathe and actually see what could be achieved in the days before the mill arrived at a price which could be afforded by the amateur in his home workshop.

I confess to having a mill drill but I have TWO vertical slides and a plethora of vises( and vices).
Oddly, I also have a vertical slide on my fabricated Stent tool and cutter grinder.

Don't be put off especially when you suggest that your old lathe is relatively unworn. Clearly, a well worn lathe and equally knackered old slide will chatter--- but equally so will a converted drill or a knackered old mill.

A generation of old and very experienced model engineers had nothing else. Learn to improve the scope of your experience- and have a go

Regards

N

 

[bazmak]

The top dovetail slide appears to have 2 fixed jaws using the screws to clamp
If you machine 1 or both off and buy or make a small suitable vise to bolt on
so you have a screw clamping vise
1, machine off the upper jaw and make an adjustable screw jaw
2,machine off both and fit a small comm vise
3,remove the whole female dovetail slide and make a replacement with a fixed and sliding jaw
4, can you remove the 2 screws,drill and tap for a single central screw and make a new sliding jaw

Attached a photo of one i have on myford 3 i have just taken

 

[bazmak]

This small vise bolts on to the t slot table,making the vise part of the dovetail slide would be more rigid
sorry if i am not making myself clear perhaps other cn advise more

 

[goldstar31]

I'm faffing about with the topside with DRO on a Sieg C4( not the SC4) and have a Myford fixed slide etc as an addition.
But-BUT, mine has a little locking screw and a pinned gib on the lines of Geo Thomas in his Model Engineers Workshop Manual.

The mill drill/ other lathes/tool and cutter grinders are actually some distance away from the study where the Sieg is situated.

I live in rather a BIG bungalow inside 3 lawns.

But I have gone a long way to modify and improve things but a vertical slide is only a top slide rotated 90 degrees!

N

 

[XD351]

You don't need a moving jaw vice , if you wind the vertical slide all the way up,and the bottom jaw is close to the centre height of the lathe then wind it all then way down then check again and the upper jaw is at centre height your clamping arrangement is using the maximum travel of the slide so you use the two set screws as clamps , you can only use the maximum travel of the slide .
Where you lose out is it is not like a myford style slide with tee slots where you can mount the workpiece directly to the vertical slide or mount a small vice in various positions , it just gave some more options . You could make a fixture plate that clamps into the original vice but it will increase overhang and reduce rigidity .

I agree with Norman 100% with the usefulness of the vertical slide on the lathe even if you own a mill or three it still gives you an extra option . Many of the model engineers that came before us had no such luxury as a vertical or horizontal mill and had to make due , we should not forget the techniques they developed and used as they are another string to ones bow .

 

[goldstar31]

Certainly, I agree with XD51 but there is yet another 'trick'. I have a rather peculiar round bit of plate with ashort bit of square tubing welded to it. I sometimes use a heat gun glue to stick the part to be machined on to the plate

It means that for lots of crude-ish machining, I don't need to fiddle with my rotary table with vice/vise, to rotate through 90, 180 and 270 degrees.

Worth a think if you don't have a rotary table. I've even got a three jaw chuck which has holes spaced around the edge and a detent.

Cheers

N

 

[XD351]

Never really thought of hot melt glue , i know some use double stick tape and superglue but hot melt can be pretty tenacious when applied to a clean surface although as with the above mentioned methods heat is thous enemy .
Must try that one day !

 

[goldstar31]

I bought some resin to make up 'Cement' a la Tom Walshaw's thing as Tubal Cain-- and lost it.
I also went out and bought some of this UV setting stuff and had to take it back as it had already set rock hard-- in the tube.
What does work, however is 'tinsmith's solder' the other drinking water variety seems to be 'naff'

I don't always win

N

 

[don-tucker]

The only problem i can see with the set up you have is the amount of overhang you have,if some support could be made to go under the fixed part of the slide it would be a lot better
Don

 

[DJP]

Perhaps there was a period when a dedicated milling machine was a luxury and lathe mounted work support allowed some milling operations but today is different. My experience with milling on a lathe did not work very well while an inexpensive mini mill with 3 inch vise was perfect for small tasks. Eventually a Bridgeport came along and was added to my shop for bigger work. The mini mill allowed me to make and use parallels, become familiar with ER collets and techniques for work holding that were passed along by a friend in the business. All of these techniques applied just as well to the Bridgeport so the investment was not wasted.

Milling on a lathe is no longer necessary, in my opinion.

 

[nel2lar]

What you would mill will on the lathe is what you can dream up. If you can hold it you can drill or mill it.
Nelson

 

[goldstar31]

Perhaps a Murad 'Bormilathe' or alternatively, Jack Radford's Elevating Heads for the Myford Super7B.

Perchance to Dream!!!!!

N

 

[Shipdisturber]

Boys you guys are a wealth of ideas! the main gist of this is figure out how to hold it tight on the milling vise in whatever way you can. So far what I think I will have to do is figure out some sort of clamp ,vise or jig to hold my work.

 

[goldstar31]

A Vice/vise was a standard task for budding apprentices. I have a huge range - from one's too heavy now to tiny little things to hold the pubic hairs on male midges.

Frankly, I have lost count but I still will make a special to do a specific job.
If you seriously take time to study what you have written- yes- what you have written, you will have to include chucks and collets and faceplates and a whole host of other things.

Today, I was holding a piece of steel which was 10 X3X3mm- with rounded ends clamped in a pair of surgeon's sewing pliers so that I could modify one for the Fagor rotary DRO on the top slide of my Sieg C4 lathe.

Perhaps you would benefit from reading up what the old masters wrote of their techniques. There is little benefit which is available to the beginner on the internet which is largely repetition and culled and described by inarticulate operators who bring very little to the hobby.

You must read the old classics and more importantly try to replicate what has been written.

This may well rustle a few feathers but many of today's people have stopped taking magazines which merely fill column inches- and keep the shareholders happy.

A few columns ago, I suggested the use of hot glue but I was merely slightly modifying what someone, dead and gone, had described a modified sticky concoction of resin, beeswax and perhaps a bit of tallow. Mine was somewhat more available. Life is like that!

Regards

Norm