support for milling a long part

[Frank S]

My lathe makes a great support base when needing to mill extra-long parts
What I made my support piece out of was a 6x6 block and a 1" thick aluminum plate which just happened to be near perfect height to match the mill table, a .010" shim between the al. plate and the b lock completed the adjustment.



much longer and I would have had to remove my chuck

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Mill Long Part Support to our Milling category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Mill Long Part Support by Frank S

tags: milling, support

[WmRMeyers]

My lathe makes a great support base when needing to mill extra-long parts
What I made my support piece out of was a 6x6 block and a 1" thick aluminum plate which just happened to be near perfect height to match the mill table, a .010" shim between the al. plate and the b lock completed the adjustment.

much longer and I would have had to remove my chuck

That is SERIOUSLY cheating! And if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying!

Bill

[Frank S]

That is SERIOUSLY cheating! And if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying!

Bill

It's not cheating when it is logical.
I once set up a shop with 4 lathes in a square pattern. No one could understand why I didn't set them up like this / / / / instead My reasoning was I am only one person with the 8ft lathe 3.5" spindle bore against the wall the 4ft 2" spindle bore 90° to it 3 ft out from the long lathe another 4ft lathe 90° to the 2nd lathe about a foot and a half between their corners then the turret lathe completing the rectangle each lathe had its own tooling mounted above the power head 2 to 3 steps in any direction and I could reach the controls of all of them enabling me to sometimes have all 4 of them turning at the same time. My Bridgeport my Radial ram drill press and my Layout drill press were set up in an upside-down L pattern the mill behind lathe #2 the radial drill to its left the elevating table could be used to support long stock in lathe #3 the layout drill to the left of the radial arm drill. with a band saw over against the wall a short ways from the end of the 8 ft lathe with a door to the outside between them, stock was fed through a hole in the building wall with the steel racks outside under an awning. A jib crane inside next to the door served every machine a jib crane next to the steel rack was for unloading trucks placing it on the rack and feeding through the door. My wife ran the bandsaw both drill presses and sometimes the Bridgeport there were rare times when she and I had all 8 machines running at the same time 2 people able to do the job of 6 or 8