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I was looking at the rockler catalog the other day and they had a vise that they say can be used for milling on the drill press. In researching the question some people thought it wouldn't work and others said it worked fine. I guess it depends on your level of precision and the kind of application you are using it for. I realize there may be issues with lateral forces on the drill press bearings but with light cuts and infrequent use I don't see that as a major problem. I would love to have a milling machine but space and financial limitations make that difficult at the moment. I planned on using it to cut saddle slots and some light machining in aluminum and plastic to make tools. Does anyone here have any experience with one of these vises?
Thanks
Bob B.

I have one and use it frequently. I find it very very handy to clamp and dial in a very precise drill hole location. I haven't used it for milling though suppose it would work fine for say slotting a bridge using shallow cuts. I don't think I would try it on aluminum.

A router may be the way to go for working with aluminum.

"A router may be the way to go for working with aluminum."

WHAT?!?

Bob--

I got the ShopFox sliding vice when I ordered the drill press and have done some practice cuts with an end mill mimicing slotting a bridge. It works well, but is time consuming to set up. I don't think that the amount of usage that I'm likely to give it will wear anything out!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

The drill press makes a sloppy mill at best IMHO, but if its all you have space and money for at the moment it could work OK for some light milling. Excessive chatter will be your main downside. The next bit is the time it takes to tram the vise so your movement will be in line / perpendicular to your cutter.

A while ago I cut a saddle slot with a cheep XY vice on my drill press (top slot with lots of chatter) and after I got a proper mill I cut the slot below.



I would not recommend a router for aluminum! Think projectiles at 30,000 RPM.

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- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

Mill table on a drill press has two common downfalls. First (and just as you already stated), drill press quills and chucks are not made with lateral forces in mind. Second, the vast majority of X-Y tables you find for drill presses are quite sloppy. By the time you get to tables of decent quality without the massive slop and lash, you're in a price bracket where you might as well be looking for a cheap milling machine.

That said, if you have a good solid industrial drill press and a good quality cross table, it can work okay on wood and aluminum. Keeping the quill pretty much all the way up and locked can help a bit too. I still wouldn't count on it for precision work or perfectly clean lines, but it can be a functional, light duty, occasional use tool. A cheap drill press and cheap cross table though, and it will just be way too sloppy to really be useful at all. In general, not a tool I would recommend for much milling work.

As to aluminum and routers, before I had a milling machine I used a router and fence for a good deal of aluminum work. So long as you go slow enough to let the chips clear and not heat the metal, it works just fine.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

i'd go with the saddle slotting router set from stew mac or whoever for saddle slots, but for making your own tools the milling vice should be ok - as has been said, there'll be chatter, but if that doesnt affect to tools you're making (i.e it can either be cleaned up or is only asthetic) then its a winner. I've used mine to make tools many times - its no milling machine, but it serves a purpose.


The stew mac saddle routing set seems to work pretty well, never had a problem with it personally, i guess you could use a milling vice to make one though!?

depends on the scale you need it on, time v money and all that stuff...

maybe a group buy on decent milling machines - only joking!...unless..?

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www.theguitarrepairworkshop.com

I have a Shop Fox XY vise, that I use very often, for light milling on my drill press, an old Navy Delta,
circa 1943. With the quill lowered as little as possible, and locked up, I get surprisingly clean results.
Light cuts are a necessity, of course.

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

Aluminum mills beautifully with a router. Carbide bits are recommended & really good protective gear is a must.
Sometimes aluminum will smear onto the cutting edge & make a ragged cut. If you feel any chatter, stop & clean the cutter with a sharp knife.
Aluminum dust is a health hazard, so clean up well once you're done.

I'm very seriously considering buying a milling machine instead of a new drill press; the speed's in the same ballpark, it costs about double (but not stupid amounts, about 650 euros), and I figure I can do a CNC conversion if the mood strikes me in the future. Sadly, I don't have the space for the slightly bigger one (1000 euros) which has a table that would allow, theoretically, fretboard slotting, but that'll have to be something for the future.

I figure a mill is as good as a drill press at drilling holes, and better for work with a side load (ie, Wagner Safe-T planer, millwork). I'll be getting a cheap spindle sander, so I won't be wanting to mount sanding drums any more.

ALuminum fines, (dust) is highly explosive. Just keep in mind with proximity to open flames & heat sources!

Paul

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Paul Bordeaux
http://www.bordeauxinlay.com

Milling machines don't really turn fast enough for cutting wood cleanly. Someone needs to make a small milling machine with a 30k RPM head.

Bob,

I bought one of these vises from either Woodcraft or Rockler a few years ago for the intended purpose of slotting bridges. I used it once and took it back, too sloppy.
If you have a router why not just make a jig to slot your bridges?

That's the problem with most of these vises. The ones that have little play in them are pretty expensive.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have a Shopsmith and a Palmgren rotary table. The Shopsmith is a combination tool that is a lathe and a drill press. That means that the bearings are made for side loading. The Palmgren is a quality slide/rotary table that goes for several hundred dollars new. I have a metal machining background, and with this somewhat idea situation, it didn't work very well. After a few attempts I gave up.

Check out the Palmgren here -
http://www.amazon.com/Palmgren-32803-Ro ... B0006577G4

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

I have worked lots of aluminum with wood working tools.

Routers with carbide bits mill nicely. Take light cuts and lubricate the cutter with light oil like WD-40.

Table saws are good for cutting plate stock. I have found that an 8" carbide tipped blade works better than a 10 inch blade. It's more stable and doesn't bog down the saw as much. Again, lubrication helps a lot.

The band saw is wonderful for cutting aluminum. You can cut at wood working blade speeds but you will get much better blade life if you reduce the blade speed to about 1000 ft/min. Also, use about 50% more teeth per inch than you would for wood of the same thickness. Run a bead of oil along your work where you are going to cut to keep the blade lubricated.

On many occasions I have straightened the edge of a piece of aluminum plate with my jointer. It is hard on the knives so I only use the very end of the knives and then I move the fence over so that I'm not using that part for wood.

It certainly is more dangerous cutting aluminum than cutting wood. Go slow, take really light cuts, and hang on tight. Beware of heat buildup that can burn your hands and make you want to let go in the middle of a cut. Be careful handling the chips, they can be sharp enough to cut you. And don't even think about cutting aluminum without really good eye protection. A full face shield is recommended in addition to safety glasses.

Mark

I have been using milling machines for wood many years. You will have to match the cutter feed and chip rate. They work . Not everyone has a milling machine and the slotting jigs you see from stew mac work well.
There are more than one way to do anything and if you lock 3 luthiers into a room you will get 4 opinions LOL. Find the technique that works best for you. Drill presses come in so many different quality levels , from pure junk to high end . Milling table add ons can work but your have to feed in the same direction. The cutter will pull the shafts and cause walking. plus I have seen cross feed vices on ebay sold as milling vices.
One thing I can pass on is that tools are designed to work doing a certain task. If we try making them do something they are not designed to do you can't expect good results
john

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I regularly use my drill press and a cross-slide vise to mill the slots in my bridges. Keep the quill speed as high as your drill press is capable. Mine goes to 3600. Tune the vise and keep the slides tight enough to minimize any hysteresis but still move smoothly. You can check it's repeatability and run-out with a dial indicator mounted to a 1/4" piece of drill rod.

I'm attaching a photo of milling bridge slots in a Bolivian Rosewood bridge blank. The blank is secured to a Maple t-block with double sided tape. The upper surface of the block has been cut to 6 degrees. This gives the saddle a back angle to help with the issue of string tension and lessen the moment pulling the saddle forward. I've also cut the base of the tie-block back by 1/16' to provide a small step surface at the lower edge of the bridge. This is a 12 hole bridge. I wish that the photo was a better one but it's the only one I have.

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Peter

Thanks for all of the feedback. I will probably buy one of these vises for precision drilling if nothing else. I have done bridge slotting with a jig I made but I don't like using my dremel tool with the current base because of bit deflection. I have also cut some bridges using my router and that cuts cleaner but I like seeing where my bit is going. After this conversation I am more convinced than ever that I need to save my pennies and buy a suitably sized milling machine. Hope to see some of you at GAL, I'm already registered.
Bob

I've used a cross sliding vise on a Delta drill press for years to cut saddle slots. I've found you have to take multiple shallow cuts, as well as a straight fluted bit seems to work better than a spiral one for whatever reason.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com