Using a mill as a lathe?

[Bob W.]

I have done this in the past and I was curious if any others have done it. I only have milling machines here and I had a customer request a hot part that really needed to be turned. I chucked the raw stock in an ER tool holder, mounted a lathe bit in a vise, cobbled together a program and turned it in the mill. It worked really well and was very efficient. Can Mastercam lathe and a lathe post be adapted to run a milling machine in this manner? It could be set up where tools are mounted in vises and each given its own work offset. It wouldn't be ideal but it would work in a pinch and for simple parts I think it would work quite well. The tool changer would act like a pallet changer where multiple parts could be set up and run while others are changed out.

 

Well, that is my crazy idea for the day.

[cincy k]

Saw this in a Seco video a couple years ago... I think. Great idea.  I've not used it having a couple lathes but when you need to do with what you have you tend to get creative.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

I have done this in the past and I was curious if any others have done it. I only have milling machines here and I had a customer request a hot part that really needed to be turned. I chucked the raw stock in an ER tool holder, mounted a lathe bit in a vise, cobbled together a program and turned it in the mill. It worked really well and was very efficient. Can Mastercam lathe and a lathe post be adapted to run a milling machine in this manner? It could be set up where tools are mounted in vises and each given its own work offset. It wouldn't be ideal but it would work in a pinch and for simple parts I think it would work quite well. The tool changer would act like a pallet changer where multiple parts could be set up and run while others are changed out.

 

Well, that is my crazy idea for the day.

 

One of guys on the forum has a video doing just this with one of Dave DeCaussin's FADEC UMC10 mills.

[Chris Rizzo]

Years ago I had a really sweet gang-tool type setup. Turning the heads of titanium SHCS. In an ER holding a threaded stub. Then made a vice jaw with a lathe tool holder, drill, and scotchbrite pad. At the end of the program I had an M00 dwell, with an M04 to unscrew it.  If I recall, have your C-plane set to top, and T-plane set to front (or the other way around). Worked just fine with regular mill post.  

[Zoober]

IMO, that would be very similar to a gang style swiss machine, with the exception of the sliding headstock.

Here is a view of our swiss sim.

[slyym]

When I did it I went in to my lathe post and there is a switch that will allow you to post out in radius instead of diameter so it will run on a mill with no editing the code.

[Guest]

I did this on a Bridgeport back in the day. Go for it! Everything will be longhand though. No canned cycles.

[Colin Gilchrist]

I did this on a Bridgeport back in the day. Go for it! Everything will be longhand though. No canned cycles.

 

My friend Mike Slota was doing this with titanium in the late 90's. That was the first time I saw someone using their Mill as a Lathe. I learned so much in my early career from that man and I still thank him every chance I get.

 

He even had a couple small precision electric drill motors that he mounted to the mill table to allow him to drill some cross-holes. You can use the Spindle Orient command (M19 P_) to index the spindle head to a specified angle.

 

This wouldn't be hard to accomplish with a Lathe Post. I would just use a VTL configuration anyway, and you would get a really good sense of how it would cut. (the backplot would show the tool moving, but the part would be moving is what I mean.)

 

Do you have a seat of Mastercam Lathe?

[JAMMAN]

I've never done it on a CNC but do it plenty on the manual mills. We have one job I set up like that years ago out of necessity and we run it still with a tool clamped in the vise feeding with the quill. Turning the OD down on stainless nuts.

 

Whatever it takes to get the job done with the tools you have in your hand.

[taperlength]

I did it once for kicks on a slow day.  Not many lathes have a 10k rpm spindle 

[Bob W.]

Do you have a seat of Mastercam Lathe?

No, but I can see some value in adding it if I see more of this sort of work down the road. With some quick change fixturing (to hold the lathe tools) a repeat project could be set up very quickly and once it was up and running it would be really efficient. I will have to keep this in mind in the future. The operator would be changing parts at the tool changer instead of the front of the machine. That would be a little different :-). The more I think about it the more I believe it could be pretty viable. Of course it would never completely replace a lathe's functionality but it could get 80% there when compared to a basic lathe with no live tooling or multiple turrets.

[Hertz]

 

Never gave this much thought as I always had a lathe handy but it is indeed cool.

[Bob W.]

Nice video, this is exactly what I had in mind. If the fixture with all of the lathe tools had zero point pull studs on the bottom making it quick change it could be set up in minutes. It could be very efficient.

[The Cathedral]

Great. I've never done this before but now you guys have got me itching to give it a shot. I've never thought of even trying it before. Now thinking back, there are a few parts that I could have done it with and it makes me want to bang my head against the wall!

[drafting3]

I've had some recent odd jobs I had to turn down because we don't have a CNC lathe. The lathe work required wasn't too involved, but was required between operations. I couldn't justify milling, then sending out for lathe work, then milling to finish. This interests me greatly. It looks like tool holding block is the most critical part. 

I have a small 3 jaw lathe chuck the owner ordered, but never used. I'm wondering now if I can modify it to fit one of my tool holders and re purpose it

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Did some of that over the weekend at home on the MaxNC with silicone tubing stuck on a mandrel in the spindle, and an exacto knife in the A axis so I could change its angle, making grommets for work.  I also did some isotropic Boron Nitride bits about the size of a grain of rice back around '97 or so; they were to be x-ray emitting catheters.  Made a square collet to hold the stock in the spindle and a grid of toolholders on the table including a part-off and catch.