Miniature Milling Machine & Mini Drill Press

(Click on images for larger view)

Built from scratch......no castings whatsoever.  I was inspired to build this mill by Wilhelm Huxhold of Canada.  I had seen the Hardage lathes he had built and heard that he was building a 1/3 scale of his Bridgeport.  I had not seen nor heard of anyone else attempting such a feat.  Having thought about this since 1996 I decided to try to replicate my Bridgeport.  The project was started Thanksgiving 2003 and finished March 2005.  I scaled my Bridgeport and 3 other similar mills.  It was built entirely from billet stock and welded construction. 

The base is 6" channel iron 1/4" thick.  The knee was welded 1/4" hot rolled bar stock.  The column is 4" square x 1/4" wall tubing.  the ram is 1/4" wall 2" tubing.  The saddle table and head was machined from cast iron.  All components were copied from a real Bridgeport.  The spindle used ER 16 collets to 3/8" maximum capacity.  I used a 24 volt variable speed motor with  pulley design.  The screw are 3/8" x 20 thread which I plan to redesign with a 3/8" 10 TPI acme. 

The table is 2 1/2" wide by 12" long by 1 1/4" thick with 8" travel on the X axis and 3 1/2" travel on the Y axis.  It was milled from a piece of 3 1/2" 64-45-12 cast iron.  The saddle is milled from cast iron along with the turret and the head.  The knee has about 4" of vertical travel.  The motor is a 24 volt variable speed with a 6 step pulley.

Overall height is 25 1/2" and weighs in at 130 lbs.  The quill has 1 1/4" travel and uses ER 16 collets to 3/8" max. capacity.

The knee dial is graduated to .025" per revolution and the table dials are .050" per revolution with a adjustable dials.  All features you see on any Bridgeport turret mill are incorporated in this mill.

The vise is a 1/4" scale from a Kurt model 688.  The other tooling consists of an angle plate, boring head, fly cutter, 5/32" drill chuck, 4 sets of parallels for the vise, and a complete set of step block tie downs with 10-32 studs along with a mill stop and WORKING mist coolant system.

I also built a boring head, clamps and milling stop, along with a working replica of a coolant mister located to the right.

I originally had in mind to use this to build small parts but it is really too pretty to use.  The mill was first displayed at the North American Model Engineering show in Southgate, Michigan in April 2005 where Mr. Huxhold gave me the best compliment I could ever ask for and coming from someone like him I was walking a mile high.

I built this Mini Drill Press from plans by Jerry Howell

 

 

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