Congratulations Andrew ;D
:big: The tooling up... - The list never ends, but just for starters what I'd consider the necessities to start off with:
First off my inexperienced and humble opinion, and at the risk of getting laughed off the board. Not tooling at all. Take some time to get to know the machine; Take it apart, clean it, re-assemble it, adjust it - simply get to know it. Twiddle the dials, put on imaginary cuts, learn to read the handwheels, think about backlash and climb and conventional milling and so on. And practice hitting the E-stop
After that worthless bit the tooling.
A good vise - though I'd recommend you keep it simple; no fancy tilting swivelling whatever stuff; just a good solid Kurt style low-profile that can be mounted without it's swivelling base. I bumped my head when I started off with my mill and got a very cheap and nasty vise, and while it worked, it never really delivered the goods. For the size of your mill, I'd say about a 4" vise should be good, but rather heed advise from other SX2 owners. And I mention mounting without the swivelling base, as in the time I've had my mill, I've only ever needed the vise rotated once, and without the swivel base you get a bit more head room in Z.
I don't know if you have collets yet, but that's a definite need to securely hold milling cutters. You can go with a set of R8 collets - which should give you maximum headroom, or get an ER25 chuck and set of collets - the advantage with the ER set being that it's pretty easy to then make a collet chuck for the Myford as well and share tooling, though the ER chuck will take some space on your Z axis. Pretty much up to you to decide
If you do decide to go the ER route, I'd highly recommend a bearing-based closer nut; it's really a lot easier to use than a "normal" one.
Depending on what accessories the SX2L comes with as standard, a good drill chuck - for the SX2L, a 13mm / 1/2" chuck. If it does not come with one and you need to buy one, try and get one that can chuck as small a drill as possible, otherwise you're going to end up like me and have to make a separate "small chuck" to hold small drills. I have found some advantages to having the separate small chuck that then gets chucked in the bigger one though; it is very useful to drill small holes as pilots and then remove it from the big chuck to chuck up a longer thicker drill without having to adjust Z.
If you don't have one yet, a DTI with mountings to chuck it up in your chosen collet chuck. Needed for tramming the vise, really getting the rotary table centered and so on. Pretty much a must-have.
A small selection of cutters to start off with - difficult to say what you would need, but some smallish ones for cutting out slots and so on, and bigger ones for trimming workpieces to size. Being metrically inclined, for me these are 4mm 4-flute, 6mm 2 and 4-flute, then 10mm 4-flute and 16mm 4-flute. My mill have "spoken" to me and like these sizes, and they get the job done. You'll have to experiment though.
As to the rest, well, loads of choice - not essential for a start, but really handy.
* More Cutters - you will never have enough ;D
* I really don't regret spending the time to make my rotary table; it's really useful. So buy or make, that would be a definite IMHO. I'd say about 100 to 125mm diameter for your mill, but then again, rather trust other SX2 owners' judgement.
* On my own wish list still - a set of thin parallels. I find myself needing these more and more. Soon, the budget might allow, otherwise I'll make some.
* Clamping kit - not needed all that much if you have a good vise, but really really useful for setting up odd shaped jobs and bigger things than your vise can take.
* I wish I had a good set of V-blocks, 1-2-3 blocks, angle plates and so on. I've been making-do without, but they would be really handy!
* A fly-cutter; really handy to have and easy to make - or buy.
* A boring head - you'll need it for that V8 engine ;D
And many, many more :big:
I hope you enjoy your trip to SA; the sunshine's a bit restricted here in Namibia at the moment. Barely 2 hours of sunshine a day and raining more than it's done for the last 120 years. I'm not sure what it's like in the Johannesburg area (Gauteng :
) - but I'm sure the Klippies & Coke or good beers whill lighten the mood ;D
Kind regards, Arnold
