Using a mill as a lathe

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

I don't have a lathe available but I have a turning operation to do so I improvised:

 

 

[jlw™]

Nice! I do this on my mill in my home shop.

[g huns]

I did this when I was an apprentice on an old Hurco. We made graphite electrodes that we would send out to be cut on a CNC lathe. We would send some out to a shop and get them cut. The next time we needed some, we'd call that shop and they'd say, NO EFFIN WAY we're cutting that stuff again! After we burned through every shop in town with a CNC lathe, the leadman, a crafty old German, told me that we could cut them in the mill. I thought he was nuts, but it worked like a champ.

[FROZEN]

Been done before, That's thinking outside the chuck.

[jlw™]

did you program it with mcam?

[Newbeeee™]

Neat Matt-chew

[Reko]

I have relieved a few toolholders and specialized holders over the years, but I have never thought of doing a whole job like that, Lol... pretty cool.

[FROZEN]

Had to turn a thread that the engine lathe could not once. It is way easier to turn a mill into a lathe then the other way around.

[jlw™]

I'd like to know more about that gang tool holder.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

"did you program it with mcam? "

 

I did, then used NCPlot for address adjustments to turn diameter into radius and flip the X sign for some of the tools.  Then I did a bunch of hand-massaging of the code; I used work offset numbers for tool locations in the machine.

 

The tooling is from here:

http://www.gangturn.com/

 

The big piece is a EC-TBS-6660.

[jlw™]

Sounds about like what I do.  I have experimented with lathe and with mill.  When using mill I use WCS for each tool, then 3d contour and draw my profile.  Offset, make trim lines that represent stock and trim.  The drilling ops I just use plain old drill cycles on WCS for each tool.  Looks like you've got it down to an art.  I've about got my lathe post tweaked for no hand editing (I had already tweaked my mill post, that's why I started there).  My machine is open so I don't run coolant but I have a couple air chillers on mag bases that I point directly on the cutting edge.  Works pretty good.  I only do small stuff for my little stirling engines.  The longest thing I've turned is 6in in length.  It sized pretty well from end to end.  Only about 0.001in taper in it.  All in all I was pleased.  I got the idea from YouTube a couple years ago.

 

This is the actual video that got me started from a gentlemen on a model engine forum I'm a member on:

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

I had done this once before in about '97 or '98, on one of these:

 

 

The parts were green isotropic Boron Nitride the size of a grain of rice for X-ray emitting catheters.

[Mjölnir]

that's pretty cool.

 

reminds me of doing thread grinding on a cnc mill. form dress the wheel and do the grinding in the same machine.

[SlaveCam]

The arrangement of tools reminds me of an old Wasino lathe I once worked with. The tools were laid on a horizontal bed in a similar way. What do they call it in english?

[Newbeeee™]

The arrangement of tools reminds me of an old Wasino lathe I once worked with. The tools were laid on a horizontal bed in a similar way. What do they call it in english?

Gang or platten