James Evanko published a new build:

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Hi! Thanks for your comment! I'm a bit confused. I see a lot of videos and articles on VMC's using a vice with parallels to suspend the stock in mid-air which seems similar to what I am doing here. Taking that a step further, I just bought a vice and parallels and am now doing almost the exact same thing with my machine. VMCs obviously have very beefy spindles. What makes using a spoiler board the better way to go, and how do you secure the stock to the spoilboard? Thanks in advance!

 

Thanks for your response! For the most part, I mill out smaller pieces of aluminum, but obviously built the machine with a larger bed so I could mill larger pieces if/when needed. When I have tried to investigate how the stock is held down against the spoilboard, I've only ever seen double-sided tape used. That sounds messy and prone to moving around to me. Is there another method? Do people screw the stock down into the spoilboard? I suppose I would be willing to do the same kind of thing as my first part where I drill holes in the corners, but then lay down some slightly smaller MDF in between and use longer screws in the corners to reach down to the table. I don't know. I have some large pieces of acrylic that I want to use to help keep the chips from going everywhere. That might be the first large stock I experiment with and it will overhang the bed. I was thinking I might be able to cut it in two or more passes. Might use V-rail as a type of fence on one side and then still need to figure out how to hold it in place, otherwise...

 

Are you talking about precision, destroying the bit or something else? I'm mostly using it like a glorified drill press. I need various sized holes in various different places. Most of them do not have to be tight fitting. It's actually better if they have some wiggle room so I can align the pieces to where they need to be as opposed to exactly where I drilled the holes, which isn't known in advance and can change with each use.

 

Thanks for sharing that video! I've gotta admit, I wouldn't have believed it without seeing it. I can see some advantages of using that for arbitrary outer contours. If you are worried about surface finish, that's probably the way to go. Honestly, though, I really didn't mind using the tabs, clipping them off with diagonal cutters and deburring them. Not much hassle as far as setup and not much effort to clean it up, especially if you don't need it to be flat or pretty. I guess my UV resin printer, isopropyl alcohol and delimonine disolving days have made me dread the thought of going back to "chemical" approaches. I still need more time to recover.

 

Oh, good to know! Fortunately, I do have the Sherline collets for it.

 

Wait, is there a difference between a drill chuck and the chuck used on a Sherline mill? I am using the Sherline chuck here.

 

Okay, looked it up on the Sherline website: "The chucks are also available with a #1 Morse arbor and drawbolt for use in the headstock for drilling on the lathe or mill. They are available in 5/32″, 1/4″ and 3/8″ sizes. Runout is .004″ or less. If runout of less than this amount is required, collets should be used to hold the drill rather than a chuck."

So yes, I thought they were using them for milling but this only says drilling.

 

Another reason why I thought the chuck made sense for milling: HiTorque Bench Mill 5500 | Benchtop Mill for Sale - LittleMachineShop.com

And yet again, for drilling. The fine print... :-(