Is A Mill Drill An Acceptable Alternative to A Knee Type Mill?

If you are looking for an alternative for the heavy, bulky regular knee tyope milling machines that are available at prices you can’t afford, you should consider a Mill Drill.

A Mill Drill uses a rotating cutting tool to remove material from a solid workpiece. It is a a lighter alternative to a milling machine. If you know and respect the limitation of a Mill Drill you can do decent work.They are light in construction, versatile as well as inexpensive and can be used for light machining that you may not be able to afford otherwise.

Drilling is performed by holding the workpiece in a stationary position while the cutting tool moves up and down with movement of the spindle, just as in a regular drill press.

For Milling the worpiece is attached to the table with the X/Y coordinate abilities which you can move it in or out or from side to side to engage the stationary tool. A locking collet ensures that the cutting tool will not fall from the spindle when lateral forces are exerted against the bit.

The Mill Drill comes with either a round column or a squarecolumn/dovetail column.  The latter is the better choice.

What kind of work can you do on a Mill Drill?

• Cutting Keyways and slots.
• Face Milling.
• Boring.
• Drilling.
• Reaming.
• Anything that can be done on a regular milling machine.

What are the drawbacks to a Mill Drill?

• Not as powerful as a Knee Type Milling Machine.
• Being less rigid than a “real” mill, vibration is sometimes a problem.
• May stall if overloaded because of too fast speed rate or cutting speed, or too large or dull tools.
• Round column may loose registration with the workpiece  when you loosen the clamp bolts to move head up or down.
• Tools have tendency to float up or down because of play in the rack.
• Not as accurate as the larger heavier type Milling Machines.
• You have to stick with small diameter tools and light feeds.

Operating a Mill Drill with damaged or worn parts is dangerous as they can break and cause injury or property damage.

You’ll need an assortment of end mills, center drills, and drill bits along with some clamps, a good mill vise, full set of collets, a mounted Jacobs chuck, an adjustable stop, a center finder, and some parallels, as a minimum.

If you use care and patience, light cuts and small diameter tools you can do most any drilling or milling operations that are usually done on the heavier, more expensive machines such as the Bridgeport.

The Mill Drill, because of its space saving and lighter weight advantages makes it a perfect addition to your home machining workshop. and one you can afford.

Mill Drill News

mill drill recommendation _ex-Tormach, Baron, Novakon?

by mikes (Posted Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:55:49 GMT) iDesign, Took a look at your sight. Seems scams are brewed in every country, I could add one for you too. I purchased an upgrade to a manuel machine that worked just fine just to do some …

Publish Date: 07/05/2010 12:55

http://forum.artcam.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12059#p52655

Types of A Drill Can Come In Many Different Shapes & Sizes._

These drills are used for larger work; the arm can swivel around the column so that any point on the surface of the table can be reached without moving the work piece. Mill Drill: This is a combination milling/drilling machine. …

Publish Date: 07/28/2010 16:04

http://www.articleoverload.co.uk/2010/07/28/types-of-a-drill-can-come-in-many-different-shapes-sizes_/

Is this wasting money? – Practical Machinist – Largest …

Yuor best bet is to get a “Mill-Drill“, with two axis table, and with a vertical Head adjustment Rack and Pinion. ( Normal Drill type advance and Micrometer advance over-ride) I Have a Chinese made HM 40 ( geared head), but for lighter …

Publish Date: 02/14/2011 9:59

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/wasting-money-219812/

Can you turn a pillar drill into a mill – CNCzone.com-The Largest …

Just curious can you turn a pillar drill into a mill thus making it more useful in the workshop.If you can is there a thread fior this somewhere?

Publish Date: 05/21/2010 3:00

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_metal_working_machines/96482-can_you_turn_pillar_drill.html

Homemade power table feed for mill drill

a power feed for the table but it is home made. I had this small motor that is built very well with nice roller bearings at each end. It must have come off some high dollar piece of equipment as you can tell just by looking at it. Anyway…….the mo…

Mill Drill Headstock Alignment with Laser

Using Harbor Freight $5 laser to help re-align the headstock on a round column mill-drill.

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