Has anyone else admired Tormach's new stand as I have?

http://www.tormach.com/Product_StandImages.html

I need to build a stand for my IH Mill and I've decided to adopt the general design of this one. I'll be welding up the load bearing portion from 1/4" plate and some square tubing, and I'll use Aaron's hockey puck method for vibration isolation.

For the drip pan and splash, I drew up the following in Rhino:

http://www.thewarfields.com/img/Toys/MachineTools/MillStuff/IHMillStand/StandPersp1.jpg

I know a fella with a sheet metal shop who I think can bend up these pieces for me. We'll see how it goes. I've been needing a welding project to try out my new Mig on.

Best,

BW

Hi Bob,

I will be interested to see how you get on. Have you considered a chip tray and do you intend to raise the mill above the tray in order to allow for cleaning/clearing of chips.

Best Regards
Phil

Has anyone else admired Tormach's new stand as I have?

http://www.tormach.com/Product_StandImages.html

I need to build a stand for my IH Mill and I've decided to adopt the general design of this one. I'll be welding up the load bearing portion from 1/4" plate and some square tubing, and I'll use Aaron's hockey puck method for vibration isolation.

For the drip pan and splash, I drew up the following in Rhino:

.........

I know a fella with a sheet metal shop who I think can bend up these pieces for me. We'll see how it goes. I've been needing a welding project to try out my new Mig on.

Best,

BW

I hadn't thought of anything as elaborate as a chip tray. I have considered providing a small door in the side of the drip pan that the chips could be pushed through.

I also like Tormach's (and others like the smaller Haas) idea to have an enclosure around the table to slow down the coolant going everywhere. I need to hold off on this latter enhancement until I have the machine converted to CNC as it looks like it will make it a lot harder to see what's going on.

The CNC conversion is going to a fair ways off, maybe by end of year. I want to make sure I have plenty of manual experience with a machine so I know what it's capable of and what it looks and sounds like before I do a conversion.

In any event, this stand thing has been holding me up getting the mill running (a common problem I notice, as I read across the Zone), so I need to get cracking on it. When I came across the sheet metal guy, one of my major excuses went away! (chair)

Best,

BW

Howdy folks, It just so happens I've been working on my table lately using leftovers and such, did buy plumbing pieces for lower legs tho, other than that it is pretty much minimum cost, maximum rigidity (hope hope !)

Hi all,
I'm building one as well, but I'm not using the steel tube frame as others are. I'm using 1/8" for the bottom, 14 Guage for the sides and inner part, and 1/4" for the top of the bench. This pretty much copies the structure of the little base that originally came with the mill and I expect it will be more than strong enough. I figured rather than spend the $1300 on a new one, I'll buy the tools and metal to build it for about the same money, so far so good I've just finished the base yesterday.

As for stiffening the splash guard, I'll be welding 3/4 angle iron around the top and get a large peice of plexiglass for the front that mounts on the top and rotates upward to open.

Jay

pictures?

Ok, here's a couple of photos of my mess. So as I was saying I bought the welder, a small air compressor, and rented a small plasma cutter and I was off to the races!

I spent Saturday cutting up the steel sheets, and let my teenage son and his friend practice their welding on it. By Saturday night and a couple of hrs tonight I've managed to get the base all welded up.

Now to grind all that bad weld down. It's not pretty but it should be functional.

I've taken the mill apart to start figuring out how to convert it to belt drive.

Jay

Here's today's update. Tough to get anything done when you only have a couple of hrs after work each day. One I know for sure is I need to caulk all joints, anybody have any ideas what would work good in this application?

Jay

have you seen the tubes of sealant they sell at the autoparts store that you can use to seal holes in gas tanks? its an epoxy filled with metal particles. or you could try something like JB Weld.

Take it from a long time painter, If you use caulking, DONT wipe it with your finger or it will start lifting at the edges. Get one of those plastic caulking tools (impulse items )from your local paint store. A beveled edge is far less apt to lift than one that is feathered. Also buy the DAP 50 year silicone or better. Dont use latex or acrylic. Also scuff the areas to be caulked with 80 grit sandpaper or rougher.

It looks pretty but...here's my two cents worth after running flood coolant on my IH converted mill for the past two years.

Coolant Tank - My first fancy commercial 5 gallon coolant tank is lying in a landfill somewhere, it was pitifully too small. So is a 10, 15 gallon is acceptable.

Chip Management - I machine aluminum and plastics and the chips head straight for the coolant drain screen and plug it up. If you place some screens around the drain to keep that from happening they just dam up around those. Coolant then begins backing up in your enclosure. Chips make a surprisingly good dam, with my coolant at about 50% flow its quite easy to back up a few gallons of coolant within my enclosure. Therefore locating your coolant drain front and center where its easy to get at and clean is a good idea. I have raised areas left and right of my drain, I push the chips up onto these slopes where they can drain. I use double screens, at the drain another on the coolant tank itself. Both should be easily accessable.

Coolant System Maint - Coolant goes bad sooner or later, it either gets nasty from contamination or the bacteria get a foothold. The coolant I'm using now last about a 9 months which is pretty good. But sooner or later you will need to take your coolant system apart for a good cleaning so it should be easily accessable.

The Enclosure - When deciding how high to make the enclosure walls to contain the coolant take into consideration that when you plunge into the stock the stringers of material climb up the end mill and fling the dang coolant off in all directions. Even a 1.5 inch face mill will fling it a good 10 feet.

One thing I did which I am grateful for on a frequent basis is this, the base of my enclosure is only slightly larger than the base of the mill. About 6 inches wider left to right and deep enough front to rear to cover the mill and all the cnc mechanicals hanging off the front. Around the back of the mill I have a tall guard. I then have left and right enclosures that hang off base enclosure and drain into that. These are 2 feet taller than the mill table. Now here's the thing, the left and right enclosures both fold back onto the floor out of my way during setups, cleaning, or when machining long stock and for mill maint they remove completely in just a few minutes which gives me easy access to the entire mill. To fully enclose these mills requires a pretty good size enclosure. Trying to reach over them to get at the mill isn't much fun.

Just my two cents worth

Thanks for that Plastic, I'm currently Designing/building a stand for my soon to arrive Tormach. The basic principles of the design are easy. Contain coolant and manage chips, but the input of experience is needed for the practicalities. It would be most useful if you could spend a couple of minutes to itemise a hit list of the actual practicalities. I will be working in mostly aluminium and some steel.

Best Regards :cheers:
Phil

It looks pretty but...here's my two cents worth after running flood coolant on my IH converted mill for the past two years.

PStockley, over on this thread, http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14724&page=2&pp=15, used spray on pickup bed liner, which seems a fine idea to seal the pan. After all, it is designed to protect, waterproof, weatherproof, and so on.

RE the coolant issues that CNCPlastic raises, I quite agree. I also think a table mounted removeable splash gaurd, ala Tormach and others, is helpful in cases like the long spinning streamers. Lastly, I note the square hole in the bottom of Jay's tray. I'm thinking that a smallish base, as you describe, and the square hole without a grate located above a big tub is a way to facilitate chip removal as well as coolant return. Need to think about how to return the coolant to pump without the chips, but I think the key is a lot of surface area and low velocities on the return.

Great progress guys. You're making me feel guilty!

At least I got my new (used on eBay) ESAB plasma cutter going last weekend. Next job is to get the welders to go and I can start building a stand. Meanwhile, I'll count on you guys to perfect the good ideas so I can scoop than all up!

Best,

BW

Great information here!
I was just at Canadian Tire looking at the Truck bed liner material, wondering if it would withstand constant oil/water mix. I'm thinking it would work quite well, as well as a sound deadener.

As for chips flying around, my sides and back are pretty high. I was considering adding some horizontal pieces to close the top a bit.

My chip tray (you can see in the photo) will sit just above the coolant section. I was going to put my cheapo 3 gal plastic coolant tank in it, but after what CNCPlastic says on the subject, I think I'll close the area off and turn it into a built-in coolant tank (with a removable top), it will hold 15 Gal.

One other enhancement I want to do is add a control panel to the front left of the stand so it contains the LCD screen keyboard, and other controls, something like this control box (http://imageevent.com/tppjr/rf45dovetailmill/cnc/controlpanel) .

Jay

To get a decent thickness you would need 50 cans of that bed liner stuff they sell in Canadian tire. I took my tray to the line-x guys. The stuff they use is very durable. I think they heat it up to spray it.

The latest from the Garage! If you'll notice in the picture there's a part in the front that sticks out, that makes room for the stepper as I'm mounting it direct drive. Also on the right is a box section where I plan to put the lcd monitor, keyboard, and small cubbyhole for a pendant.

Bob, that plasma cutter will be really nice. I just returned the rental I had and picked up some oxy-acet bottles, they're pretty crude compared to the plasma cutter.

Also the castors I put on it really make working on it in my small garage much nicer. Now to add adjustable feet as well.

I've gone through 2 1/2 bottles of Couger gas (Ar 80% / CO2 20%) on the mig so far on this project.

Jay

It looks pretty but...here's my two cents worth after running flood coolant on my IH converted mill for the past two years.

Coolant Tank - My first fancy commercial 5 gallon coolant tank is lying in a landfill somewhere, it was pitifully too small. So is a 10, 15 gallon is acceptable.

Chip Management - I machine aluminum and plastics and the chips head straight for the coolant drain screen and plug it up. If you place some screens around the drain to keep that from happening they just dam up around those. Coolant then begins backing up in your enclosure. Chips make a surprisingly good dam, with my coolant at about 50% flow its quite easy to back up a few gallons of coolant within my enclosure. Therefore locating your coolant drain front and center where its easy to get at and clean is a good idea. I have raised areas left and right of my drain, I push the chips up onto these slopes where they can drain. I use double screens, at the drain another on the coolant tank itself. Both should be easily accessable.

Coolant System Maint - Coolant goes bad sooner or later, it either gets nasty from contamination or the bacteria get a foothold. The coolant I'm using now last about a 9 months which is pretty good. But sooner or later you will need to take your coolant system apart for a good cleaning so it should be easily accessable.

The Enclosure - When deciding how high to make the enclosure walls to contain the coolant take into consideration that when you plunge into the stock the stringers of material climb up the end mill and fling the dang coolant off in all directions. Even a 1.5 inch face mill will fling it a good 10 feet.

One thing I did which I am grateful for on a frequent basis is this, the base of my enclosure is only slightly larger than the base of the mill. About 6 inches wider left to right and deep enough front to rear to cover the mill and all the cnc mechanicals hanging off the front. Around the back of the mill I have a tall guard. I then have left and right enclosures that hang off base enclosure and drain into that. These are 2 feet taller than the mill table. Now here's the thing, the left and right enclosures both fold back onto the floor out of my way during setups, cleaning, or when machining long stock and for mill maint they remove completely in just a few minutes which gives me easy access to the entire mill. To fully enclose these mills requires a pretty good size enclosure. Trying to reach over them to get at the mill isn't much fun.

Just my two cents worth

Could you post some pictures of the details of your enclosure?

It sounds like you have done some significant designing to overcome the irritating problems that poorly enclosures have.

Thanks

TMT

I've started welding up the base of the stand. 4"x4" and 4"x2" rect steel tubing and 1/4" plate. This thing is built like a brick s***house. I've got a sheet metal guy who is going to bend the drip pan and backsplash once I get the stand done. You can see the pix here:

http://www.thewarfields.com/MTWeldingMillStand.htm

It's being Tig welded as I don't have a Mig (yet!). Mig would be faster, but the Tig is working out fine. When I get the frame welded up I will be mounting it on hockey puck feet per Aaron's suggestion on the IH site (wish they'd repost all those suggestions, they seem to be gone!).

Best,

BW

I often considered a type of enclosure to include as an option to the kit, and as soon as we’re done retooling and smoothing production we’ll look into it again.

The problem is NOT the enclosure, it’s the freight. Because it has to go as a high class freight will be astronomical.

On the other side, we see a lot of competitors offering machines with cute little enclosures, which look great, but…..well lets put it this way, I have chips on TOP of the mill head, all the way up the back splash and 70% up the sides. So it just leads me to a functionality question.

I have talked to many machine owners and shop owners as well, long and short, if you cannot shut the doors it becomes an absolute mess, not to mention a safety issue with coolant on the floor and all.

BTW, the tips will be back soon, we’re just reworking the site.

Aaron, there ought to be some way to design an enclosure that packs flat and wouldn't be that bad on freight. I will probably add a higher "curtain" around my drip tray using 80/20 extrusions and plexiglass whenever I get to the point of flood coolant and CNC. Until then, I'll be using plexi shields that attach to the table with magnets to provide additional coolant control.

In terms of maximizing the packaging efficiency you could even go with sheet metal construction. I just got a new sand blast cabinet that turned out gorgeous and cost almost nothing to ship.

Best,

BW

Actually that’s what we’re looking to do.

I would have to be sold with the mill and break down flat so it lies on top of the crate and can just be shrink-wrapped on top. That way freight would be effectively nothing.

I would be a compromise between no enclosure and a door’ed enclosure.

We’ll get there.

:cheers: This Is An Update To The Sad Table Laid On Floor Above, If Ya Look You'll See Machine Looks Familiar If Ya Been To Aaron's Updated Site At Ind Hob ! His New V-3 ! This Is A Couple Of First Fit Pics The Other Day. It Came Right Back Off After Hole Locations Were Varified, And More Welding Going On Trying To Get It Ready For Paint !
THIS IS THE VERY SAME MACHINE AS AARON'S PHOTO :cool:

Hi Cruiser,

Looks like its coming along just fine.

Having just mounted a Tormach PCNC1100 on a more compact, stiffer (looking at least) subframe I would recommend you do a trial run with the machine before you paint the stand. Mine wobbled like a jelly with the table moving at 65 ipm, stopping and/or reversing. There is a lot of mass charging around all over the place.

Regards :cheers:
Phil


:cheers: This Is An Update To The Sad Table Laid On Floor Above, If Ya Look You'll See Machine Looks Familiar If Ya Been To Aaron's Updated Site At Ind Hob ! His New V-3 ! This Is A Couple Of First Fit Pics The Other Day. It Came Right Back Off After Hole Locations Were Varified, And More Welding Going On Trying To Get It Ready For Paint !
THIS IS THE VERY SAME MACHINE AS AARON'S PHOTO :cool:

Here is the basic mill stand in "Industrial Hobbies Blue":

http://www.thewarfields.com/img/Toys/MachineTools/Welding/MillTable/P6053451.JPG

I plan to shim this beast solidly level on my concrete floor, and then set the mill atop it with some "hockey puck" vibration dampening feet. The picks will sit right over the 1/4" square tubing, so things ought to be fairly solid and stable. We will see.

Next step will be having a sheet metal guy I know (HVAC guy) fab a drip pan and backsplash.

Best,

BW

That is one heck of a stand....

Thanks, Viper. The silly thing weighs about 200lbs. I didn't want the mill to start walking around after I CNC it, but it may also have been a case of overbuilding! (chair)

Best,

BW

Sorry to respond to my own post, but I've gotten the mill up on the table and it's working well:

http://www.thewarfields.com/img/Toys/MachineTools/MillStuff/IHMillFirstChips/IHMillFirstChips1.jpg

I cut a slot in some aluminum to try it out, no prob, cuts like butter:

http://www.thewarfields.com/img/Toys/MachineTools/MillStuff/IHMillFirstChips/IHMillFirstChips5FinishPass.jpg

I'm very pleased with the stand and the mill. It cuts very smoothly and is noticeably more rigid than my Lathemaster lathe. I'm looking forward to "getting to know it" better in the coming months before I undertake a CNC conversion on it.

The table was so solid I chose not to bother with the hockey pucks. The mill runs very smoothly atop that table, with almost no vibration. I suspect that when I swap out the Chinese motor for the Leeson upgrade Aaron recommends it will get even smoother. I'm going to save the drip pan project until I get closer to CNC'ing as I won't run flood coolant until then anyway.

Best,

BW