Scalliwag

With all the things people in this thread embark upon we need either a) lots of money or b) tools outside what you would find in most peoples garages.
We are a little more intense in the fact that we actually get into the motors and are not content with the quid pro quo.
Whether it is building your own peripheral ports, making intakes, custom brackets, etc. Some tools can make your life much easier.
On this thread I would like to post helpful related links to using mini-mills, lathes, or purchasing them.
Things to watch out for are very good to know as well.
For those interested or own mini-mills and or lathes this is a great site http://www.littlemachineshop.com/

banzaitoyota

My most helpful tools right now are my plasma cutter and my MIG welder

Scalliwag

I have a mig, but no plasma cutter. I still have to rely on the old oxy-acetolene rig for that. As far as my tools I think are a little beyond what you would find in most peoples garages would be my vertical mill I got to mill rotors and my lathe/mill combo. If I counted my custom made equipment for the housing resurfacing then that would be two more.
To say what comes in the handiest would be hard though because chopsaws, angle grinders, and drills sure count for a lot of projects.

banzaitoyota

True, my tool list to purchase is too damn long!

Scalliwag

A good alternative to a mini-mill is a floor model drillpress with a cross slide vise. The reason I believe this is because the mini-mills do not have much room at all between the head and the table.
With a floor drillpress it is not a problem to get plenty of room under the chuck and most will allow you to tilt the table. To be sure everyone knows the tools I am reffering to here are pictures:
Mini-mill/lathe combo:

Floor drillpress:

Cross slide vise:

As you can see from the picture the mill part of the mini mill/lathe it is lacking as a mill. The spindle only has 3.15" of travel. The lathe is pretty decent and if you look at the pictures I put on building peripheral ports thread I was able to bore the holes and turn the tubes on the LATHE side. The mill did not come in at all on that project. In fact I would have been much better off with a standalone lathe because I could have got a better lathe for less money.
The mini-mill retails at $699 but seems to always be on sale for $549.
For $329 retail I could have got a lathe that cuts threads and has a lot better selection of speeds.

To use this lathe to make a pport you would remove the plate at the back and remove the tailstock. Go to the thread on building pports to get more details for building them.
Let me know if this thread is at all interesting. If it is I will post more related information. If you have any ideas please post them as well. To me the shop is half of the fun of this hobby.

HeffBoost

Very much so. Even though I can't afford this stuff now, I love to read about it and dream of the possibilities.

Auctions are a great place to look for mills and such but most of the time they're huge and if you don't have the means to move it and the space to keep it it's not feasible.

I've seen a few private machine shops but I don't think any of them had a coating sprayer setup. That rocks that you're going after the housing resurfacing with such verve.

That's the stuff.

Cheers

88IntegraLS

Scalliwag do you still need more housings for your project? I have two S4 NA housings you can have if you want them. Water jackets look fine, one even turned 90 PSI but it is scratched deep. PM me with your address if interested.

Rx7carl

Good thread Scalliwag. I agree as per our discussions that a big drill press and a good crosslide vise is an excellent investment.

Scalliwag

Right now I have a good supply of housings but that is going to dwindle quickly pretty soon. I was planning on having most people sending me their housings but now that I know how to make a pport I will probably sell some of them outright.
Right now I just want to get them tested and go from there.
But don't toss them. I am going to be buying them up at some point.

Scalliwag

Yep, our conversations struck me as something useful to alot of people here. The Harbor Freight radial floor drill press for $179 list can probably be picked up on sale at some point for $150. It is already a steal though. It has a rotary table as well. So you can slide the head back and forth and tilt it. You can mount the cross slide on the table that will tilt, raise, lower, and rotate. This would be an incredibly versatile setup for the buck.
One thing to consider also. Let's say that these drills are a little sloppy. They can be "tweaked" by replacing the shitty bearings with some "tight" higher quality bearings and you could basically make a very quality tool for alot less than you could buy one for You could also upgrade the motor at some point as well when one came along for a good price.
If you ever price a radial drill press even on Ebay a used one is high. Granted this is not as good a quality, but it will work great for hobby work.
Check out the specs

Scalliwag

This is a tool that has been worth it's weight in gold. It is usually on sale for $20 at Harbor Freight. It is made mainly for using as a drywall cutout tool for putting in electrical switches and stuff but it makes for a badass rotary grinder. It is a little too big to get in some places but there is a flex extension that fixes that problem. This runs at 28,000 rpm and you can bear down on it hard without bogging down. You pull the clear cover off the nose to get more room for rotory grinding. Be sure whatever you attach to this is rated at this high rpm.
If you put a drum sander on it the paper may fly off and slap your *** silly

This shaft extension is only rated for 10,000 rpm but there are better ones out there

Scalliwag

I bought the radial drill press at Harbor Freight. The ONLY drawbacks to this is the stroke (3") and the 1/3 HP motor. There is not an easy workaround for the stroke but a 1 HP or higher motor that will directly bolt up is not hard to come up with.
Since a radial head drill press usually costs over $1500.00 you can put some extra money over the $189 make a very bad *** press with some milling capability.

I will take some pics of some working with it.
I also picked up their metal bandsaw. Here is a great link that includes a link to how to make these cheap bandsaws run really tight and some neat mods as well.
These saws now come with a 1 HP motor. So the article about the motor meltdown is on the older style.
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Bandsaw/Bandsaw.htm

banzaitoyota

KEwl!!! I have been eyeing that drill press!!!

I blew my monthly tool budget on a bottle of Argon and a bottle of Tri-Mix (He-CO2-Ar) for the Mig welder

Scalliwag

Well you spent your money well. I have a 125 bottle of Argon that I make good use of. I have a little Lincoln Weld-Pac 100 that I got the gas kit for. It works well on thin stuff but I am aching to upgrade it and put it on Ebay.
I have not picked up a cross slide vise yet for the drill. That will really trick it out. With the way the table rotates, the head moves back and forth I could easily get by with just using a standard drill press vise.
But that would not be like me. If you look close you will see that the table on the drill press is actually on a "knee" joint fixture. So the table can be extended in an out as well!
I did not notice that until I picked it up and I was very happily surprised about that. I think I have at least a 3/4 HP motor to put on it for the time being.
With the 5/8" chuck you can get a lot of tooling into this that will bog down the little 1/3 HP too easily.
I've only drill a few things with it so far and have not even attempted to bog it down but it is obvious that 1/3 HP is way too little a motor.
I picked up a 2 HP motor at HF on sale for $59.00 for another project and I would use it except it turns counterclockwise and is non-reversible. Fortunately it will still work for the other project.
HB has a few other motors that would work for pretty cheap. One thing to consider is that the shaft size on the 1/3 HP is a 1/2". Most 1 HP and up are 5/8" and higher. So a step pulley with the correct bore would be needed. So figure in another $15.00.
Since you have to replace one pulley anyway here is a thought; change the pulleys and use a smaller diameter on the motor side.
That way you can slow it down for milling. The slowest you can run this is a 620 rpms and for alot of stuff that is going to be too fast.
Keep in mind that it has a 1700 rpm motor originally and there are a lot of 3450 rpm motors the could screw you up and be a very unwelcome surprise when you fired it up

banzaitoyota

Enco has a sweet deal on bits and cross-slides for a drill press right now. I run a Hobart Handler 135

setzep

hmm.... can have my own littke machine shop for under 1000 bucks. Tempting.

Rx7carl

Enco has a cross slide milling table for $119. I just got it. More versatile than a small cross slide vise.

And HF has this beauty. Very handy.

Scalliwag

Is it the Palgren 6" cross slide vise that they show on their site for $129?

Rx7carl

No its a milling table like the one on pg 139. It has T slots so you mount a vise or clamp parts directly to it.

Rx7carl

Oh and you spoke or replacing the bearings to make it tighter. Have you done this? How hard was it to find the right bearings? I agree that would be a great upgrade as the drill press works really good otherwise.

Scalliwag

I have not done that yet. That will wait until after my rotor housing resurfacing project is finished.
But it is just a matter of pulling the current bearings out and taking them to a bearing supply and have them match them with precision bearings.
I am supposed to do a 4 pin modification for a guy. A tool grinding shop is making a bit with a short pilot to center it up. I am going to test this press for it and see how that works.
That will be worthy of a pictorial.

Scalliwag

Well I found a problem with the drill press. The table is not even close to level (90 degrees) of the chuck. There is not a real easy fix but there is a fix none the less.
It will require making an adjustable pivot on the arm that holds the table. Without doing it, it would be a royal pain in the *** to level parts up.

I will definately have to take pics of the problem and the fix.

Rx7carl

Sorry to hear that. I guess I got lucky. I checked mine in both planes with a square and thankfully in the non adjustable plane it was dead on.

Scalliwag

You didn't get one of the Harbor Freight radial drill presses did you? It seems you already had a drill press right?

Rx7carl

No, mines not a radial one. Yea I got one of those real big ones they sell, when they had it at a good price with free shipping.