From Drill to Mill

[kim]

I was delighted reading the post on the Drill to mill conversión but unfortunatelly is incomplete, the autor is no longer posting.
Any more ideas? Some time ago I tried milling aluminum with a cheap chinese bench drill, after a while it started wobling and it was trashed.
I bought a heavier, probably US made old bench drill and would like to convert it since a real milling machine is just a dream out of reach (to heavy/to expensive and yes, to difficult to conceal from femenine eyes)
I adapted a mill attachment to my atlas 618 but is not enough for my DIY ego.

Any ideas someone?

[kim]

Just finished with the new brass gibs on my asian xy vise and what a change, I have no perceptible backlash!!! great.
The vise is a lot smaller tan the table mentioned in the post so there is no room for dials and travel stops. I´ll see what else can I do

[kim]

This could help
Making a Vertical Milling Machine

[jrbass62]

I'm trying to make a mill from a Clausing 20" drill press to. Ill let you know if I get any info

[jrbass62]

Check this out. framer99.blogspot.com/2012/11/diy-reverse-drawbar.html

[italiantools]

I think that converting a drill in mill is not convenient . The drill is designed to resist wear in the vertical direction . I think if used like a mill it ruins in a short time .

[jimspac]

As a Sr Mfg Engineer I can tell you it is considered a cardinal sin to hold an endmill in a drill chuck even for boring purposes because the chucks are not designed to support the radial forces that are only handled properly by collets and solid holders. You get a small X & Y milling attachment that can be mounted to the drill press table. You would be restricted to very light cuts with the drill chuck.

I used to have my own part time machine shop with 2 Bridgeports, a Boyar Schultze 612 surface grinder, and a Monarch engine lathe. I worked at it for 8 years and made enough money to buy a Bridgeport Series 2 NC. I was chided by friends and customer initially until they saw the work I could do with it.

Now with all that gone I yearn to have a clunky old Bridgeport to handle my projects. If you can afford $1200 or up you can run a 3 phase 2 hp on a static phase converter (motor starter then runs on single phase at 2/3 power output) I had to build a rotary phase converter to run my NC on that cost me $75 for an old Baldor 7.5 hp motor. You just need a big enough motor to cover the largest motor and start this motor with a static phase converter. This will supply true 3 phase power to anything on that circuit.