Let's See Your Mill

[sasquatch]

Great pic of that pool ball handle!! Love it!! Lol

[Arbalest]

(09-23-2012, 08:31 AM)Rickabilly Wrote: I do like these little knee mills, much more usable than a mill drill but smaller than a turret if only there was dual spindle, horizontal/vertical model. Hmmm, I can feel a project coming on.

Rick

Have a look at the Elliott Omnimill. Only slightly bigger but with twin motors and vertical and horizontal spindles.

You can also buy an adaptor to convert a vertical to a horizontal:

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/Right...ments.html

[EdK]

(09-23-2012, 08:41 AM)Arbalest Wrote: Have a look at the Elliott Omnimill. Only slightly bigger but with twin motors and vertical and horizontal spindles.

You can also buy an adaptor to convert a vertical to a horizontal:

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/Right...ments.html

Nice mill Arbalest. Do you have the adapter to convert your mill to horizontal? I'm curious as to how well they work in the horizontal mode. Especially one with an R-8 spindle.

Ed

[Rickabilly]

I've got to admit I'm no fan of horizontal adaptors, I mean, yes they do let you use horizontal cutters but are just no where near rigid enough to actually use them properly, the real beauty of a horizontal mill is that the spindle is embedded in the column for the ultimate in rigidity,

I prefer the frankenmill route of fitting a vertical milling head to a horizontal mill, But I will check out the elliot,

Thanks for the tip

[EdK]

(09-23-2012, 08:53 AM)Rickabilly Wrote: I've got to admit I'm no fan of horizontal adaptors, I mean, yes they do let you use horizontal cutters but are just no where near rigid enough to actually use them properly, the real beauty of a horizontal mill is that the spindle is embedded in the column for the ultimate in rigidity,

I prefer the frankenmill route of fitting a vertical milling head to a horizontal mill, But I will check out the elliot,

Thanks for the tip

Rick,

That was my concern also with the adapters. What is a "frankenmill"?

Thanks,
Ed

[Arbalest]

I've not got one myself Ed but I'm sure one guy on here has one.

[Rickabilly]

If you look up the elliot omnimill on the lathes.co.uk site http://www.lathes.co.uk/elliottmillers/page2.html as I just did when investigating arbalest's last post you will see a "Factory style" "frankenmill" conversion, the omni mill is an attachment made by Elliot to bolt down on top of some of their smaller horizontal mills.

Over the years I have built a few frankenmills, The idea is simple, buy a good strong old fashioned universal horizontal mill, with all the table feeds and the ability to drive indexing heads etc and then take off the over arm, mount it on the table, mill the end square and drill a series of holes in it to allow the mounting of an adaptor onto which you bolt a Bridgeport or clone vertical milling head, then fit the overarm complete with Bridgeport head back onto the mill, the only down side is the lack of a swivelling mount for the vertical milling head turret so you do lose that versatility over a Bridgeport, but you gain so much by having all that horizontal mill rigidity and feed options, and the name of course;

Frankenstein + Mill = Frankenmill

Regards
Rick

[Arbalest]

This guy has an Omnimill. The one I had was sadly no where near as good condition. I don't believe Elliott ever sold the head as a separate item, the Omnimill was sold as a complete Vertical/Horizontal mill.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645494@N05/5282399607/

[EdK]

(09-23-2012, 09:20 AM)Arbalest Wrote: This guy has an Omnimill. The one I had was sadly no where near as good condition. I don't believe Elliott ever sold the head as a separate item, the Omnimill was sold as a complete Vertical/Horizontal mill.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7645494@N05/5282399607/

That mill looks to have a decent sized table on it for it's size.

Ed

[Rickabilly]

(09-23-2012, 09:20 AM)Arbalest Wrote: I don't believe Elliott ever sold the head as a separate item, the Omnimill was sold as a complete Vertical/Horizontal mill.

I agree, but the design was thought up for the same reasons as some hobbyists build frankenmills, to get dual spindles without the need for a new machine design, the omni mill head just wouldn't suit 99% of horizontal milling columns as they usually have dovetail overarms, but is a nice little machine for when I do decide to downsize, I now know what to look for, Thanks Arbalest.

regards
Rick