I got a couple of books for Christmas, the few items on my wish list
that anyone in the family understands. When I ask for; VFD's, or ER 40
Collets or, Rotary table, etc, their eyes glaze over.
I got a copy of Harold Hall's 'The Milling Machine for the Home
Machinists" which is the 'US' title for "The Milling Machine, and
Accessories, Choosing and Using, Number 49. ISBN 978 185486 266 2" I
also got a copy of "milling for the home machinists" which again is the
'US' Title for "Milling a Complete Course, number 35. ISBN 1-85486-232-4"
And the 'US' version is IMO BS. If this version is supposed to be
'slightly edited version for the American market' I would expect ALL of
the metric measurement references would be translated to US or imperial
measurements or similar, which they ARE NOT!! There are so few US -
imperial measurement references in the books that if the British
versions are cheaper just buy them.
The 1st book "the milling machine" is described as more 'theoretical'
and it covers the various models and types of Mills available and discusses purchasing decisions in detail.. Then it moves into tooling, clamping, vices,
etc. I actually found the book quite useful and learned several things
from it.. One thing about Harold Hall's setups on the mill is that he
likes to use angle plates... A lot....
He does come up with a couple of novel uses for angle plates.. If you
have a pair of them you can use them (with some all threaded rod) as a
"two piece vice". put one angle plate on each end of what you want to
mill and use all thread to pull them together.
Which leads to this: http://www.homews.co.uk/LrgAdjAnPL04.jpg
Another point he makes that I plan to follow up on, is that a good
quality rotary table can be fitted with indexing plates and used in
place of an indexing head. Grizzly sells a 6 inch setup that would seem
to fill that bill.
He also makes the point that if you have occasional need for a tilting
angle plate, you can attach a standard 90 degree angle plate to a rotary
table that is mounted in the vertical orientation and then just
'dial-up' the angle you want.
The other book, "milling for a home machinist' or 'Milling a complete
course' is not my favorite and will probably go on the 'sell as a used
book' pile.
Its VERY cooking recipe like. That a piece of 30mm steel and mill an 8mm slot 12 mm fromt the end for 15mm. etc. I was constantly looking at the pictures for each
'Project' trying to figure out what part he making and what it was
intended to do.
The whole point of the 'course' in milling is to construct a grinding
rest and an end mill sharpening fixture for it. That includes turning
SPECIAL COLLETS for the fixture.
IMO I plan to go more in the direction of this post:
www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f13/sharpening-end-mills-lathe-19134
I've already got multiple 'precision' spindles in my shop with
calibrated X - Y tables, etc so WHY would I go to all of the effort, ah
1st to convert every measurement the in the book to US measurements, and
finally TURN MY OWN Collets??? I just bought an 8 piece R8 Collet set
from Enco with discounts for $21... Why not use them or ER collects, of
better yet the 4 inch 4 jaw on my 7x lathe will hold any and ALL of the
tooling I have end mill or otherwise...
Either way the 2ND book has a couple of good things in it as far as
setups and clamping, which the other book more or less covered already
as well.
You opinions or mileage may vary.
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