Howto on the Horizontal Milling Machine - My notes

Comparing a Deckel FP2 to metal shapers, makes me think they are related, part of the evolution of machine tools. Still want to build the clapper box to fit the deckel...

The problem with the quagga or dodo is they have been extinct for a long time, how they once lived and roamed, we know from information passed down by generations. Very similar to me is the concept of the vertical milling machine, almost extinct; and not a lot of information around on how to use it!?

With the old fossil standing in front of you, and me time traveling with my leather apron, old classics humming on the valve amplifier, I force myself to only use the vertical head, and start thinking how to cut angles as example, it becomes clear; a simple but very useful geometry.

Since very little information is available online, I hope to collect a useful how to guide for starters, and perhaps also gather some expert advice in the field.

In a previous post I presented my idea to cut oil groves with a cutting jig, the jig has to have three sides with angles. How to do this with the vertical head, without sine bar? It would be possible with a swivel base vice if the cutter was very slim and long, not ideal or even possible, sequence of operation becomes important. But on a horizontal setup this becomes easy. Set the angle on the base, flip the part upright, cut the first angle, lay it flat for cut two, flip it over and cut third side. Or reverse the order no problem. Only have a short stubby cutter? also no problem.

Simple Arduino based DRO design ideas

My thinking is to create modular units, a display controller with 4 inputs to display the three axis and RPM. It should be small and later connect to Linux CNC

Displays

Pollin WDC2704
Pollin Hyundai HP12542R-DYO

TM1638

https://github.com/rjbatista/tm1638-library

Quadrature encoder
HCTL2000
Attiny2313
https://github.com/usedbytes/i2c_encoder


VFD Contol
https://wapl.es/cnc/2015/12/04/huanyang-linuxcnc-2.7-speed-control.html


The Arduino nano does not have enough pins to address 4 Quadrature counter IC's, IO expander Atmega32 or 8255?

http://www.torretje.nl/files/p8255optim.ino

Decide on a bus RS232? I2C?

Oil grooves for sliding surfaces on Machine Tools / Ölschmiernuten für Gleitführungen an Werkzeugmaschienen

My ongoing quest to restore the Deckel FP2, Chipmaster and Eagle surface grinder, makes you deep dive into Machine tool design frequently.

Once the castings where back with shiny new precision ground sliding ways, the question comes do I improve on some of the shortcomings, like no oil grooves? Or leave it factory standard? Well this is probably one of the main reasons why I decided invested in old machine tools, the new machines from china also require a fair amount of work to perform consistently and last for some time.... Might as well spend the time on an old machine tool and in the process learn the trade.

Well back  to the topic at hand, how to cut the oil grooves inside dovetails? There are various tidbits on the web giving advice, but nothing seemed elegant and time efficient. As example one could spend a lot of time with a precision setup on the manual milling machine to engrave oil grooves. Or a setup on a CNC. Or use a hand held dremel like tool, or use a custom ground scraping tool.

When you consider the options, it becomes apparent why a lot of old machines, have very simple oil grooves like elongated Z's,  straight connected 0's, long straight slots with perpendicular grooves similar to I. A few examples shown below.

But we know better, there is a great book by M Weck ( Werkzeugmaschinen 2 - Konstruktion und Berechnung ) Pg 245 it shows some examples and the form which shows best performance, a trapezoidal zig zag form (figure 1 below) When you think about what happens to the viscus fluid while the slides are sliding across one another back and forth, this almost acts as a staged pump.  The pumping action helping the spread of oil, since it can not run back along the inclined grooves. The one thing my research did not find is the best angle for the inclined grooves. The angle needs to satisfy two opposing requirements, retain as much oil to evenly spread on the opposing slide, 2. feed oil to the next stage. My starting point is 25͒͒͒͒͒͒°, lets see how this goes.

Now once the form is selected, the down side is this form probably is the most complex to produce. This made me go in search of methods we used before machine tools, and the result is a simple tongue and grove planer with a special ground tip.  Below take one on such a tool, for 60° dovetails. The angle might vary on your specific requirement, but I can see a use in inverted V slides used on the lathe and in square columns used in the Deckel.