I did everything with my mini-mill.
I've cut stainless steel and steel- it worked but my HSS bits went dull quickly, I think because I wasn't using coolant, but it may have also been lack of rigidity promoting it. Or it could have been chucking in the drill chuck killing bits, Or the chinese tin coated HSS is just garbage- that could be possible too. I cut on Bridgeports with Niagra cutters and they last a lot longer. I never figured out how to use the collets that came with the mini-mill the instructions don't really cover any of that so I just left the drill chuck in it.
I installed Ron steels belt drive and it was awesome for five minutes. It smoothed the hell out of the machine and it ran almost silently. Of course I'ld gotten bored as hell of reading his pages of directions and missed the note about slowly advancing the speed control in high RPM range- I blew my fuse.
My mini mill has been down ever since. The fuse is some strange one I can't find anywhere.
If I get it back up, I'll run it in low range.  |