am i crazy for wanting a mini mill??

A cut off saw with a good blade would give you very flat parallel cuts.

After cutting I would take them to my granite plate and hand lap them to perfection.

Even after using a disc sander I lap everything for flatness.

A mini mill is not very rigid and using a fly cutter could end up chasing flatness.
If you plan to use a vise and parallels to hold the wood be sure it is dead flat because some vises when tightened can lift one jaw a wee bit and throw it off.
 
OK everyone. Lets just let this go. Cushing has his mind made up and I am not sure why we are still discussing it after four months.
Let's all drop it.

If Cushing wants, he can close this thread.
 
neo71665 said:
I've used a fly cutter on some softer aluminum and it leaves a roughing cut finish at best. I don't even wanna try to cut steel with it after seeing the struggle with just aluminum. Might be ok with wood, it would be something I would try. I'll come clean and say I'm not a knife maker but a wanna be hobby machinist. I don't play with tree carcass much. When I got my mill years ago most of my work was cutting on paintball markers. All the custom stuff we were doing back then you can just buy now so I got out of it so now just toy around making chips.
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Curious what markers were you working on? E.g. were you half blocking autocockers?
 
cchu518 said:
Curious what markers were you working on? E.g. were you half blocking autocockers?
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Exactly, I love autocockers. I have done some work on some other stuff but my main thing was tinkering with my 'cockers. Used to have fun doing it but as with anything once it hit a trend it was cheaper just buy it already made.
 
neo71665 said:
Exactly, I love autocockers. I have done some work on some other stuff but my main thing was tinkering with my 'cockers. Used to have fun doing it but as with anything once it hit a trend it was cheaper just buy it already made.
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That's cool. I sold my last cocker and picked up a Shocker CVO. Next up will be an Empire Resurrection cocker with an Inception FLE RIP frame when I muster up the money for it!
 
Ummm. this thread is NOT about paintball (If my google search on the reference is correct). Please keep on topic? My mini mill is still in the crate in the garage ..... I would like, though, to be able to in the future refer to success/failures in using it for "tree carcass" :) efforts as I exercise it.......
 
Cushing H. said:
Ummm. this thread is NOT about paintball (If my google search on the reference is correct). Please keep on topic? My mini mill is still in the crate in the garage ..... I would like, though, to be able to in the future refer to success/failures in using it for "tree carcass" :) efforts as I exercise it.......
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Sorry, didn't know you were one of those kids that liked to play with dead cellulose with a machine designed to make metal chips. Bet you only used an angle grinder in welding classo_O:p
 
just an update on this "discussion". as I posted on the "whats happening" thread, my mini mill came in. I got it kind of sort of set up, and decided to take a couple test/trial runs. First image below is from a block of unstabilized cherry. I used a 3/8" endmill, and ran over both sides .... not going for a specific thickness, but looking at consistency of thickness, and condition of the wood surface. notations are block thickness at that location measured by micrometer:
upload_2020-11-2_13-39-42.png

so .... varying from 0.975 to 0.961" Consistently the lower edge is thinner by ~ 0.014". because of the pattern, my guess is this is likely this is because I have not trammed the table yet. Still - even with that for my current Wa-handle component needs this is much better than anything I could do by hand (at least without swearing a lot). You can not really see it .... but there is a little bit of fiber pull-out .... but for the most part these surfaces would be roughened at 60 grit for glue-up ..... so I am not really concerned about that either.

Second try was with a small piece of stabilized spalted maple. no attempt to go for uniform thickness .... just looking at what the surface looks like. you can not see it in the photo, but there are one or two very small places where there was some pull out .... otherwise the surface is quite smooth. Again, very acceptable for my purposes....
upload_2020-11-2_13-46-50.png

oh .... the cut was a controlled 20 mil step. no way I could do that by hand! more to do in set up .... but I think I am going to like using this machine!!!
 
You will love it when you use it to make a saya
 
What mini mill did you end up going with? Have you had a chance to use it much? If so, are you happy with it? I’m still looking for a drill press and/or mini mill and just don’t know which way I want to go yet.
 
I love it. Let me break away from kitchen work in a little bit and I will describe in more detail...
 
Ok .... broke away for a couple minutes....

I got the Little Machine Shop ("LMS") High Torque Mini Mill (which I see is not in stock just now..... :-( ). I was originally thinking of the harbor freight mini mill .... but the coupon for the thing at $599 or so became invalid, and it did not look like they were going to issue another, so the price of the thing became $799. I have been forewarned that both the HF mill and and LMS SIEG mill used plastic gears between the motor and t he shaft .... and that these break. The solutin is to get a belt and pully conversion .... which is something like $150 .... so that starts pushing the actual cost of one of the "lesser" mills closer to the price for the LMS Hi torque mini mill (which is direct drive with a brushless motor ... and thus continuously variable from very low rpm to its highest setting). It also has a more solid column... So I just decided to go with the better mill, and save the headaches of the pully conversion.

The thing is HEAVY (~127 pounds), but is rock solid. It is also basically whisper quiet. I did a couple test millings of handle/scale material, and even without leveling the table, across the scale the thickness was within 0.005" or so. Mill that out to wanted dimension/thickness, take a quick pass by hand on 60 grit sandpaper, and a scale is ready for glue-up. As others have warned, the surface is NOT a machine-like metal surface, but can have some pull-outs. I dont care about this.... as you need to roughen the surface for glueing anyway .... and if the pull outs are on the sides of the scale, well, they are limited in size, and if you make the scale slightly oversize in the length and width, those sections get cut/sanded out anyway when you fit to the handle.

I've recently been working on a Wa handle, and have a couple definite observations:
* if you want to side-mill to create a side perpendicular to a face, you need an oversize/longer end mill, otherwise you can not mill the entire face without bottoming out the collet onto the top surface.
*I had to do some back-and-forth between the drill chuck and the collet (actually I am using an end mill holder). This is kind of a pain, but not doable, and worth it for the rock-solid drilling accuracy.
*the mill does NOT have the same vertical clearance capability as a drill press. So .... when I went to drill out the central hole in my Wa handle stock, I could not place the wood stock vertically on the top section of my vise. I got around this by clamping the wood on the side of the vise so that a bunch of the handle actually sat below the bottom level of the vise .... but I could make it happen.
*BUT, when it came to drilling out the dowel after glue up .... there is no way at all that I could fit my extra long 1/8" drill into t he mill. So I did a couple shallow drill holes with a short 1/8" drill bit in the mill, then want to my bench vise with a hand drill and the long drill bit to complete the drilling into the depth of the wa handle. (this would not be an issue with standard scales)
*it was also a pleasure to be able to mill out the small slot in the front of the bolster for the Wa handle, instead of drilling holes by hand and then using a file to fill out the opening...

That might be TMI for you .... but so far I love the mill. No regrets....
 
That’s great information. Would it be your opinion that the mill would not be a suitable replacement for a drill press? It seems like there’s not as much clearance between the table and the the collet as there is between the table and the quill on a press.
 
I think it depends on what kind of drilling you want to do. If you are doing something like drilling holes through western style handles (either the metal tang or handle material) I would say it is superior. If you want to drill deep holes through long material (say 4 inches or more long) then you will probably struggle with the clearances. Does that make sense?
 
Why superior to drill tang and scale holes? I use a drill press for it and can't think of an easier way. Plus my drill press has 130 mm spindle movement :)
 
Scaniaman said:
Why superior to drill tang and scale holes? I use a drill press for it and can't think of an easier way. Plus my drill press has 130 mm spindle movement :)
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Well, I guess that is a relative thing, but...

It is far quieter, I have continuous control on spindle rpm, after you clamp the blade you still have a high level of control on drilling location by table movement handles, and far less runout on the spindle.

scales and handles don’t need a huge vertical movement or depth penetration, so the mill does not limit you there?..
 
I’m only making fixed blade western style knives. So I’m not sure I really need a mill, but I don’t doubt I’ll try folders at some point. But I don’t want to spend a decent amount of money on a junk drill press. A machine that can perform more than one task just seems ideal. Not sure what I should do as of now.
 
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