Milling on a lathe

[Bob W.]

I just ran across a project that is a mill part but could be done very well on a bar feeding lathe with live tooling even though there isn't any turning.  Anyone ever do this?  Would it be hard on a lathe's main bearings to be doing only milling with no turning on an extended project?  Basically it is a small part that would fit in a small piece of round stock and it would be more efficient to load up a bar feeder with enough to run for a day or two than have someone changing out parts in a mill, even a horizontal mill...

[YoDoug®]

It's very common in the Swiss machining world. Lots of medical parts that have all milled features that are made in lathes. 

[jlw™]

If it's a small part you can't be pushing it that hard. I'd be more worried about the duty cycle of the live tooling.

 

I've done a couple jobs like that except the bar puller was a guy named Tod (with one d). The only turning was a parting tool to chop it off.

[HYPERTUNE]

I do WAY more milling than turning in my NTX2000, including quite a few parts that have no turning at all. 

I even have a fixture that mounts a 6" double station vise in there.

Almost 2 years in and no problems at all so far. 

 

[jlw™]

Did you program it with mcam?

[mkd]

Would it be hard on a lathe's main bearings to be doing only milling with no turning on an extended project?

 

 i've heard VDI type holders/ right angle drives have limited life and duty cycle, and from a little experience i would tend to agree. prolly depends on brand.

 

if you wanna do hard core milling, goto a real milling spindle. I went BT40

[Zoober]

We mill all day, every day on our swiss and mill turns.

The mill turn has a mill head, so it's not apples to apples.

But the Swiss is.

We do go thru spindle bearings and gear drives for live tools once a year or two, depending on the usage. Mkd is spot on in that regard.

We are also limited to 10k and 8k RPM on the live tools, so sometimes that is a bit of a limitation, as we do small medical.

We have a number of jobs that are all mill from bar stock.

The only turning is partoff to transfer to the sub spindle.

[civiceg]

Obviously there are better options, but none the less, this video came to mind

 

 

Still have that Haas Bob?

[GoetzInd]

Did it all the time. Takes the right part though. Usually looser tolerances in easier to machine materials. Lots of tool replacement, HMC is the way to go.

 

 

 

We do go thru spindle bearings and gear drives for live tools once a year or two

+1

 

Mike

[HYPERTUNE]

Did you program it with mcam?

Esprit.

[BenK]

If your going to do extensive milling in a lathe I would recommend a b axis lathe. The real spindle will last much longer and will give you higher rpm's than live tooling. Depending on the part there are several configurations you can get. B-axis upper only, b-axis with lower turret and twin b-axis. The options are endless these days.

[crazy^millman]

Did you program it with mcam?

 

I have programmed many machine like it Mastercam since 2007.

[The Cathedral]

We do extensive milling on our Okuma M-Y equipped lathes. It works, and it works well, but your end tooling will be the biggest drawback. If you're not on a machine with a dedicated milling spindle, you'll be sending your live tooling back for repair more often than you'd like. Ours are cooled by the coolant, so you can't run it dry for too long. Plus, cooling/lubricating with a water-based coolant has it's own obvious problems.

 

If you're talking about short- to medium-run parts with a little bit of regularity, you'll be fine with these kinds of machines. If you're talking about production runs or frequent runs, you'll want to look at a dedicated mill-turn.

[Mick]

I do WAY more milling than turning in my NTX2000, including quite a few parts that have no turning at all. 

I even have a fixture that mounts a 6" double station vise in there.

Almost 2 years in and no problems at all so far. 

 

 

Nice