AusVarmint

Now I got a mate who.....................geez I sound a bit like Rodney rude with an opener like that,seriously a good friend of mine has just gotten himself a Hafco HM 46 mill and is awaiting the delivery of a AL336D lathe .
He has no real idea about milling and or machining and I have a litttttttle bit of experience so my question is............................................
........................what can I do on these things.
I dream of threading and chambering a barrel ,I have discussed this process with a quality smith,I have watched the you tube videos but what are the bare minimum tooling that is needed.
I have collets for mill drilling,thread tooling,boring bars etc but what else.....................I have been mucking around on the mill with a couple of pieces of timber and a stock dont seem to far away. Regards Chris.

My question is how can your mate justify it, I also have no experience but have been trying to justify it for some time...

What he said goes for me as well. What a champion mate to have, getting all the gear and then letting you use it, you want to keep him pretty close by.

Bit of a long story but its a tax type situation..........................................if my shed was bigger he had no dramas with me storing it .
He is from a non shooting/firearms background and I have leant him shit loads of stuff over the years,rifles,rest,ammo etc and ,well now he wants to get into making some stocks and just playing around,pretty sure he has around $6500 or so invested so far and that includes some tooling,thread cutting gear etc.
Ha,Ha ................................yeah I am a bit lucky hey.

PM GregT. His is right up there with this kind of thing. His personal milling machines are enough to make your eyes water and your mouth run dry.

Required tooling is really dependent on what you are going to do with it.........I have thousands of pieces of tooling and some of it has been used many times, some just once.
So I would say just see what you need and play it by ear.
Having said that though, I would look at getting a wide selection of clamping tools......you will be surprised how difficult it can be at times to hold things on the table of a mill.

Have a look at the Hare & Forbes website......they have a lot of cheap tooling and clamp sets.....some are not the best quality, but work ok for hobby use

Harb wrote:Required tooling is really dependent on what you are going to do with it.........I have thousands of pieces of tooling and some of it has been used many times, some just once.
So I would say just see what you need and play it by ear.
Having said that though, I would look at getting a wide selection of clamping tools......you will be surprised how difficult it can be at times to hold things on the table of a mill.

Have a look at the Hare & Forbes website......they have a lot of cheap tooling and clamp sets.....some are not the best quality, but work ok for hobby use

I would start with a good machining vice for the mill, and perhaps a couple of vee blocks and clamps. Don't forget that once you have your first clamping arrangement, you then have the means to machine up other clamps and mounting plates. It's a good way to practice on some non-critical stuff first.

However, please remember the safety side of things, eye protection and no loose clothing, long hair, etc.
I always machined with my sleeves rolled up when in the trade, and still do. That way it's hard to get a sleeve caught up in a chuck or fly cutter.
And get into the habit of having chuck keys either in your hand or on the bench. They are potentially lethal if left in a lathe that's started up, so don't let go of the key, and don't face the risk of leaving it in the chuck.
And end milling swarf is sharp like needles, so don’t clean the mill bed with compressed air. Scraping and wiping will clean it up.

Actually, it's probably worth a trip to the library and borrowing a book on machining. The trade book used to be “Fitting and Machining”, published by TAFE publications by Ron Culley, ISBN 0724138196. The library can probably get a copy in for you, or you might find a copy second hand or as an ebook. The first section was dedicated to safety, and the rest went through everything from screw cutting to milling. This is about the best general machining book I have seen. I’m not sure where my copy is now, but I’m not letting go of it anyway.

,,,actually, I just found a copy on evilbay....
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/The-Compact- ... 1368wt_852

Good luck and enjoy. And be safe.

Regards, curan.

Clamps, vices, accurate measuring equipment, tooling, tooling, and more tooling, tool steel so you can learn to grind your own tooling - everyone else here has said it all also

Did I mention that you're going to need lots of tooling bits

As an aside, my old man recently (in the last 12 months) converted the tool post on his lathe to a quick change system - man that makes tool changes fast!

Thanks for the tips and advice................all good points,now I ordered a 1 inch box cutter that I used to do the barrel channel and it works a treat,total cost including postage was $8 !!!!!,I didnt expect much and it is ideal.
So my next question is whats the general opinion of the cheaper E-bay type tooling....................or is it a suck it and see type thing?

The book Fitting and Machining is about $80 from Hare & Forbes, it's a different book to he one on Ebay
Have fun
Ol 55

Get onto manson reamers website and download the catalog. They have crowning tools, floating reamer holders, reamers, headspace gauges, all sorts of goodies for doing barrel work.

As for stocks the main things I have used ( a mate makes stocks and Ive been allowed access to help/do my work with him) are:

The readout box on the side of the mill so you can work out your center line and know how much wood each side of center you are taking out.
A little box that tells you the angle you have the straight edge on (god knows the name but its some fancy kind of electronic level)
A range of SHARP and GOOD QUALITY DRILL BITS
Say a 4mm flat cutter, 6, 8, 10 , 12, 14mm etc. ALL NEED TO BE SHARP AND GOOD QUALITY
Something round to cut the barrel channel with- I think your sorted already there.
A few router style bits for fancy edge cuts on the rails of BR type stocks
Air compressor or vacuum for clearing cuttings
Dremel to do intricate stuff by hand like inletting for safeties, magazine plates etc.
5 minute epoxy (lamintate does sometime chip and you need to patch it up before continuing)

The main thing I found and he told me is you need to do lots of practice at getting smooth and fluent at it. I still wind the handles the wrong way and take chunks out occasionally. Would suggest getting some cheap timber to start with (look for maxbeam imported hardwood laminate used in construction) Or maybe start with some cheaper solid wood if you can get ahold of it. Knock out a few stocks and you will get better and better.

Chris,


Whatever you do don't read this thread.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.p ... pic=168050

P.s. If you mate has cash to get rid of might as well put the hard word on him to convert to CNC.

chris.tyne wrote:Now I got a mate who.....................geez I sound a bit like Rodney rude with an opener like that,seriously a good friend of mine has just gotten himself a Hafco HM 46 mill and is awaiting the delivery of a AL336D lathe .
He has no real idea about milling and or machining and I have a litttttttle bit of experience so my question is............................................
........................what can I do on these things.
I dream of threading and chambering a barrel ,I have discussed this process with a quality smith,I have watched the you tube videos but what are the bare minimum tooling that is needed.
I have collets for mill drilling,thread tooling,boring bars etc but what else.....................I have been mucking around on the mill with a couple of pieces of timber and a stock dont seem to far away.

mill.jpg

stock.jpg

Regards Chris.

I know exactly where that cutter will be used.

Ha,Ha,...................................Bingo

For stock work, buy yourself a bunch of carbide tipped 1/2" shank router bits. They work great in a mill and are cheap as chips compared to end mills, one 1/2" collet will hold all of them.

You can get a little power feed unit for those mills, worth every cent of what they cost, even only on the x-axis. A few people have cnc-ed those little mills as well and they're putting out some pretty decent work with them.