How can I use my Milling Machine?

Without a doubt the most versatile machine tool is the vertical mill milling machine. Mills can be used to flatten, drill, bore, chamfer, profile amongst other things. There are mini mills, mill drills, side mills and vertical mills. Milling machine consist a vertically mounted motor and spindle, a table which can be moved around with a great deal of precision and a mount or body holding everything together. Milling machines employ small cutters such as ball end mills, four flute mills etc. They however can also drive big fly cutters, boring bars, involute gear cutters and other increasingly arcane cutting tools. The mills fit into high precision kaulitz which mount on the spindle and are capable of making cuts with a very high degree of accuracy.

You can also mount drilling chucks onto the spindles of mills and perform conventional drilling operations. There are many types of milling machines which can prove difficult to choose when deciding which one to buy. The smallest one is the mini mill which are used by people who make models e.g. model steam engines, model railroads etc. Next up is the mill drill, a tool which borrows attributes from both the drill press and full-sized vertical mill. Mill drills will typically have horsepower in the one horsepower range. On the high end you’ll find the vertical mill, sometimes called the Bridgeport which is the company which introduced it in the first place. They weigh several tons and consist of a motor and spindle, body and knee where the table is mounted. Bridge-ports have a greater one a half horsepower range.