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Practicality of high speed spindle on manual mill

leeko

Stainless
Joined
Jun 30, 2012
Location
Chicago, USA
Hi all

I purchased a "precise super 65" spindle, which I intend to use as an ID grinding spindle on my surface grinder and/or T&CG. It has a variable speed universal motor with an Rpm range of 10k-45k and a 1/2" collet chuck.

But, the more I read about this spindle (on Tony's lathes site, mostly), it looks like the spindle was originally intended as either a grinding OR a milling spindle, and actually was marketed as a bolt-on milling head for horizontal mills among other uses.

How practical is a milling head with a lowest speed of 10000rpm on a manual mill? Even with carbide tooling, it seems like anything bigger than a 1/8" endmill would be running too fast... I don't tend to run tiny tooling too often.

Just trying to figure out if there's any real reason to make the unit interchange between the grinders and the mill...

Thanks in advance

Lee

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The Deckels used a jig grinding head (15-160k rpm) in manual operation, tooling always appears to be stones or drum rolls in promo pics....and the only place I've ever seen them in use in the wild, are mold shops. Speeders seem to be used more for actual milling, even then, not sure I've seen them on anything manual.
 
Imho .. depends.

The mold guys, small ic engine makers, high end manufacturers of small parts, use tiny end mills to make and/or finish their parts.
An auto parts major mold runs about 100 hours, and half of that with 1 mm endmill, 15k rpm (more rpm if the machine can do it).

A high speed spindle will have near-zero torsional force, at 1 mm - 2 (3) mm endmill sizes. In steel.
Typical forces might be 0.5 kgf or about 1 lbf.
A Bridgeport 2 Hp is about 60 kgf or 150 lbf for comparison.

One cannot run a manual mill anywhere near the speeds that cnc machines run to finish the molds with, in feed rates, but so what.

1.
A high speed head can allow You to finish parts to extreme accuracy, with very low loads on the machine, and low fixturing loads, and low endmill loads allowing extreme reach and overhang.
2.
A high speed head is not necessarily very-very-slow.
If you can achieve high feed rates, via power feed or other refit arrangements, you can get decent mrr rates.

Depends, as I said.
A lot of work is extremely well suited for this type of stuff, but a lot of it is cnc- basically any production.

Reproductions of old items for cars, aeroplanes, any museum stuff, could be well-paying work.
Anything for yachts as well.
Custom architectural items- complex hinges for home theaters etc.

Best biz I ever knew of--
2 guys making hinges for superyachts. Maybe knobs.
Cupboards hinges, drawers, hinges for doors, everything to fine jewelry standards, with prices to match.
They apparently had 80% of the global superyacht industry market.
30 sq m tiny workshop in england.

Clearing 1M£, == 1.2 M$ profit, per year, between 2 guys.

I know several similar niches and industries, of near-similar profits / artisan, that I have visited.
Several I can talk about, as they have published and allowed general public release of sales and stuff.
 
Thanks for the advice. I'd like to set this spindle up as a milling spindle for small bits if possible. I received it today. It has what appears to be a 6" extension on the nose, with a small threaded arbor on the end. The extension doesn't turn - only the threaded end turns. I'm guessing it was being used as a grinding arbor.

Does anyone know if the extended nose is removable? I'd like to use it for high speed milling, and the extended length isn't particularly useful for my needs. None of the photos of this spindle I've found online show such a long nose... There's a threaded ring at the base of the extension, bit unthreading it doesn't achieve much. To disassemble any further, I'll need to make a couple little pin spanners to undo the spanner nuts.

Also, it seems like this is just a regular universal (AC/DC) motor - would a router speed control do the job for variable speed? Or would that likely damage something?

Thanks again

Lee
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