Universal Table on Mill Drill

[Tundra Twin Track]

Was over at a friends shop this morning and he just got a round column Mill Drill,I had never seen one with a Universal Table.Was wondering how many use theirs.

[mickeyf]

Yes, wouldn't expect that. I'd think they'd put money into a not round column before fancying up the table.

[mikey553]

It could have been a nice feature on a horizontal mill. Not sure how you can benefit from it on a mill-drill.

[rklopp]

Seems a bit lipstick-on-a-pig-ish. Then again, one should be able to dial out the angular error between the X and Y axes, which one cannot do with a one-piece saddle.

[Dan Dubeau]

I'd never seen one before either, until the other day when I spotted this guy on the local marketplace for $1500.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...2-900e86116619

[BCRider]

There's been a few times I'd love to have had something like that for making a longer angled cut or three. But clearly that was a brief market feature that was rapidly dropped in favor of more profit or lower cost to sell more units.

[Mcgyver]

Its like those Indian companies making shapers.....on what basis did they develop their marketing strategy? Some machine tool company brochure they found in a box of WWII surplus stuff? imo, playing the odds, its going to be a rare mini mill driller who knows what the feature is for, let alone one who would use it.

I'd never seen one before either, until the other day when I spotted this guy on the local marketplace for $1500.

Eve odder seeing on in a vertical mill.....I supposed the first photo was a horizontal. not sure what the point of that is.

[Dan Dubeau]

Eve odder seeing on in a vertical mill.....I supposed the first photo was a horizontal. not sure what the point of that is.

My only guess was the machine tool builder was so terrible at getting the x/y squareness within spec they decided the hell with it, and tossed a swivel in there to let the end use figure it out .

[The Metal Butcher]

Brb, gonna go make some helical gears on my Wrong-Fu! As is only natural, of course.

Crazy.

[Tundra Twin Track]

You Guys will Laugh,I recently made some mounts from Nylatron on my Varnamo using the Vertical Head and rotating the Universal Table for getting desired angles.Just for kicks🤓

[DR]

Older Hardinge horizontal mills have universal tables. With a fully tricked out setup they can cut helical gears, but the cost back in the day must've been astronomical. Besides the mill you need the gearbox that translates x axis leadscrew rotation into rotation of the universal indexing head. Makes you wonder how many shops actually made helical gears. It'd take a lot of gear making to justify that investment.











m

[Noitoen]

Can the round column mill tilt the head 90º? In this case it can be useful, I think.

[Tundra Twin Track]

Older Hardinge horizontal mills have universal tables. With a fully tricked out setup they can cut helical gears, but the cost back in the day must've been astronomical. Besides the mill you need the gearbox that translates x axis leadscrew rotation into rotation of the universal indexing head. Makes you wonder how many shops actually made helical gears. It'd take a lot of gear making to justify that investment.



My Varnamo was setup to do all those Functions,it’s early 80’s era and I’m sure must have been Pricey.Freight from Sweden would have been costly also.







m

Can the round column mill tilt the head 90º? In this case it can be useful, I think.

The Head is fixed with no tilt rotation.

[The Metal Butcher]

Older Hardinge horizontal mills have universal tables. With a fully tricked out setup they can cut helical gears, but the cost back in the day must've been astronomical. Besides the mill you need the gearbox that translates x axis leadscrew rotation into rotation of the universal indexing head. Makes you wonder how many shops actually made helical gears. It'd take a lot of gear making to justify that investment.











m

Fella on IG setup and producing them. It's really only for one-offs. Serious production is hobbed or shaped.

[Paul Alciatore]

OK, a helical gear does need to have the gear at an angle. But the movement of the gear does not need to be on that angle. For a helical gear set up the swivel should be ABOVE the X AND Y axis, not between them.

And the gear also needs to ROTATE as the cut progresses. But these mill-drills have absolutely no provision for that or even any obvious points where such an attachment could either sense the X movement or cause a rotation of the gear blank.

NO, this was not for making helical gears. It does not get you even 1% of the way there: totally useless for that.

Brb, gonna go make some helical gears on my Wrong-Fu! As is only natural, of course.

Crazy.