Industrial Hobbies

Square Column Bench Bed Mill

We figured we would create page with a whole bunch of pictures and just plain descriptions

  
   
This is the whole mill in an isometric (on angle) photo.
   
We had a table from another square column mill (not ours) and put it up there for reference.

The table on the top is the standard size table offered by everybody else.  Ours is a little more than 7" longer.
   
We also had a mini mill running around so we put it up there as well, so the mini guys can get an idea.
   
This is NOT our current mill, but our old mill. 

We like the picture plus a lot of customers said they like it too.  The size and the travels are the same so we'll show that picture as well.

As you can guess one of the biggest problems we face is conveying the actual size of the machine. 

It's big, the maximum working envelope (stop to stop) is 30" X-axis by 12" Y-axis.

Even with all these pictures we'll still get emails from customers saying "This is one big SOB"

Where we make our numbers is the lengthened table (7" longer) and the Y axis which is about 4"-5" longer than most.  Real numbers here, not advertising BS.  We've worked with most other types of mills, so we know their real numbers.

 

 
   
The big change here is the Z Slide and Head Collar.

Good picture of the collar, so we'll talk about it.

The collar holds the head on the Z slide (which goes up and down).

Their is quite a bit speculation whether or not a small collar was causing loss of rigidity with square column mills.  We wondered about it too, I figure a 12.25" collar will stop the debate.
   
Here is the Z-Slide and the back of the collar.

Once again we come back to the question of rigidity, or actually cantilevering of the head.

The long and short of it is physics, the head on most of these mills runs anywhere from 240-295 pounds.  The head is secured only at the column, so gravity wants to pull the head forward.  By increasing the length of the Z-Slide we reduced the cantilevering.

Most mills have a Z-Slide of 7.5" which is pretty small.
Our old mills were a pinch over 10".
And these are about 12.5"
   
Taking straight on pictures of something that is essentially behind the head is pretty hard.

So here here is the left side of the head.
   
Here is the right side of the head.

The collar is centered left to right on the head.
   
The ways are now ground, instead of just machined.

Long and short lapping a mill was a lot of hard work.

We'll still keep the procedure up there for all the other mills that need to be lapped, but ours don't need it.
   
And as usual, inch dials, just figured we would show them.
   
So you can see all the sides we walked around a took a few pictures.