Was looking for a Cross slide vise, but found an older HF mill/drill machine instead!! (1 Viewer)

[alia176]

If any of you home machinist type folks have a recommendation for a decent cross slide vise, please share. Found this Wilton on FleaBay and I'm sure it's Chinese made with Wilton branding. Curious, what is the 5" or 4" referring to? is it the amount of opening or the width of the jaws?

Thanks for your inputs.

 

[wapitimud]

I don't know if there's anuthing to make you suspect it is a chinese vise, or a knockoff. Wilton has always been good for me.

I would prefer to buy something like a vise as used locally. They're quite heavy and it allows you to inspect them, maybe less now with covid

 

[alia176]

I don't know if there's anuthing to make you suspect it is a chinese vise, or a knockoff. Wilton has always been good for me.

I would prefer to buy something like a vise as used locally. They're quite heavy and it allows you to inspect them, maybe less now with covid

I have a 8" Wilton vise and it's made in China and so is the cross vise I referenced above. Only the really old Wilton products were made in USA. Unless I'm forking out major $$$$$, I won't be able to afford a new USA made cross slide vise and I'm ok with that.

As I'm looking at cross slide vises, I quickly went down the rabbit hole of drill/mill machines. Given that I'm going to be needing a XY plate to mount a cross slide vise, I was curious what kind of price an actual drill/mill machines are fetching. So far it looks around $800 and up for a bench top machine and quite a few vendors are selling the same unit with different branding, similar to this one. I'll keep an eye out for an used machine as I just learned a local buddy recently acquired one of these bad boys so I'll be heading over to his place to slot some holes in some brackets I just finished building.

 

[e9999]

just be realistic as to what you can expect with a level of machine like the HF one. This is likely not going to be sufficient for some serious machining. Sure it'll be better than a drill press but I think it is unrealistic to expect good thou-level work with those unless you go to excruciating manual measuring etc. They are just simply in a different class than your typical pro Bridgeport and the like. Having said that, I would have (and may well) have great fun with a 3 in one little benchtop guy for my not so demanding wishes/needs.

But as to your question, why do you need a cross slide vise if you are going to have a milling machine? These normally come with a table and you can use a regular mill vise. Are you thinking about using an xy vise on a drill press? That would not work very well, typically, they are just not built for side loads.

 

[wapitimud]

I don't know if a genuine Wilton that happens to be made in China will be necessarily bad. I do think that a HF one would be.

 

[alia176]

just be realistic as to what you can expect with a level of machine like the HF one. This is likely not going to be sufficient for some serious machining. Sure it'll be better than a drill press but I think it is unrealistic to expect good thou-level work with those unless you go to excruciating manual measuring etc. They are just simply in a different class than your typical pro Bridgeport and the like. Having said that, I would have (and may well) have great fun with a 3 in one little benchtop guy for my not so demanding wishes/needs.

But as to your question, why do you need a cross slide vise if you are going to have a milling machine? These normally come with a table and you can use a regular mill vise. Are you thinking about using an xy vise on a drill press? That would not work very well, typically, they are just not built for side loads.

You're 100% correct Eric, expectations have to match reality, which in this case, isn't looking for a thou accuracy. I have access to buddies who operate machine shops for that kind of thing. I just wanted a cross slide vise for my 80's vintage floor standing drill press then I went down the rabbit hole of drill/mill combo machines. Drill presses typically can't handle side loading caused by a cross slide vise so I went down the mill/drill rabbit hole.

The older HF units seem to garner a decent reputation vs the newer units. I'm going to look at the buddy who just acquired the beautiful bench top mill above as he has an older HF mill/drill machine. On second thought, who am I kidding? I'm not going to be looking at it, I'm just going to buy it I know me.

I'm going to keep my vintage drill press for normal stuff but looking forward to learning how to mill slots and such.

 

[e9999]

I think it's pretty fair to think that not only is using a drill press with an xy vise as a mill not going to go too well, but using an x-y vise just to locate a hole is also questionable IMO. (I have one and never used it with my drill press, in fact.) Sure, you can put the part just right under the bit, perhaps by using some sort of fine pointer -which means extra work- or by having very good eyes, but you can usually do just as well and as fast with a good centerpunch divot and letting the part locate itself with the drill bit, I think. Of course, then you have to be careful to hold it securely (I learned my lesson the skin-torn hard way) but that's not so difficult. The x-y vise also takes a bunch of vertical space and adds a lot of weight on the table.

I would look carefully at how the dovetails are worn if I were to buy a used mill. If it's all at the usual center positions, it's hard to work around with the gibs. And also look at the screws and nuts, you can get backlash and locating issues if worn unevenly. And, if you can't resist buying one -who could?- on a budget keep in mind that you will also need to spend a ton of money on tooling to get much done. That's easy to overlook in the initial excitement.

Yes, some of the earlier HF machines made in Taiwan were OK and much better than the following early chinese ones. The more recent generic chinese machines may have gotten a bit better as the QC improves, though, although still a long way from serious US brands, I think.

Have fun!

 

[alia176]

The machine is now at my place and it's a heavy sumbitch

Thanks for the info Eric, very helpful. This $150 purchase was gonna happen no matter what so I'll deal with whatever comes my way as there're plenty of online machining geeks who thrive on improving HF junk. This is an older unit that my buddy has never used as he doesn't know how and he got it on a trade, years ago , so it's been collecting dust for a while.

 

[e9999]

Well, that was fast, Yea!
$150 is not much, and you got some bits, you can't go too wrong with that. And if you got that green vise, too, well then it comes awfully close to errrr.... not possible to resist territory... It does look a lot like a regular drill press besides the table. Does it have some sort of heavy duty quill built for milling? Morse taper?

 

[Prairie Swamp]

I bought that HF machine new about 5 years ago. No complaints except what is known....the round column. One of the first things I did was put an 8" or so long piece of 1" aluminum into a 4" Chinese Kurt vise knockoff and ran an endmill across the top end to end. All I did was clean the cosmolene off everything no indicating of anything. That aluminum piece was parallel to within a thou end to end.

Maybe I got lucky. But its heavy stout and powerful. Mine lets me work as accurate as I'm willing to put the time into.

 

[alia176]

I do have some bits so it'll get me started. Mind you, I have NO idea what I'm doing but I have a project where I need to slot some 3/8" holes on 1/8" thick steel.

Can someone please tell me what does 1/2" x 1/2" marking mean? I figured the diam of the bit is 1/2" but not sure what the second 1/2" number means!

 

[Mauser]

I do have some bits so it'll get me started. Mind you, I have NO idea what I'm doing but I have a project where I need to slot some 3/8" holes on 1/8" thick steel.

Can someone please tell me what does 1/2" x 1/2" marking mean? I figured the diam of the bit is 1/2" but not sure what the second 1/2" number means!

View attachment 2577101

Pretty sure the first number is the cutter size and the second is the shank size.

 

[alia176]

ahhhhh, that helps. Thanks bud.

 

[Mauser]

Sure, I found the chip tray that goes under the machine if you want it.

 

[Prairie Swamp]

Did any R8 collets come with it? Or just the drill chuck? Cheap on eBay and worthwhile if you're going to use it much.

 

[alia176]

Did any R8 collets come with it? Or just the drill chuck? Cheap on eBay and worthwhile if you're going to use it much.

Can you please share a link so that I know what you're talking about! I'm a total newb

 

[alia176]

Sure, I found the chip tray that goes under the machine if you want it.

That'd be awesome, thanks!!

 

[Prairie Swamp]

R8 Collet Set

Each one is sized to the specific mill or drill you are going to use. I assume there's a drill chuck in the spindle of your mill. To use a 3/8" end mill to make your slots for example you would use the 3/8" collet (unless you have a 1/2" shank on your 3/8" end mill).

Anyway for the money they are a lot stronger and more accurate than the drill chuck. But the drill chuck will work.

 

[e9999]

^ it does not look to me like this machine is set up for an R8 system.

 

[alia176]

^ it does not look to me like this machine is set up for an R8 system.

Maybe this pic will help?