Right angle spindle

[mccafferty]

I have a project that is going to require me to machine mortises in the ends of a bunch of rails. My CNC router is a vertical spindle type. Are right angle spindles available or is there some other more clever trick to allow this type machining on a vertical spindle machine?

[whiteriver]

Depending on the type of machine you have you may be able to jog your gantry past the edge of the bed and clamp the rails to the front of the machine. My gantry goes long ways along the y axis so i can have the spindle extend past the front of the machine about 4 inches.
Another way may be to bolt on a angle plate. then bolt your spindle bracket to that. In the attached pic I used a piece of 8"x8" 1/2" wall tube and bolted it to my Z. Then I can mount my spindle vertical or horizontal. I paid $50 for the tube. You can get a 8x6x5 webbed angle plate from enco for $20. Ductil iron is much better than steel. It won't transmit vibrations like steel.
Hope this helps.

Donny

[Chagrin]

Out of curiosity, why aren't you making tenons on the ends of the rails?

[cadcam]

Are right angle spindles available

Well they do make right angle head attachments for cnc's I have used these many of times over the years.

But what type of holder does your machine take? May be Cat40 or HSK.

[ger21]

I've seen variable angle attachments as well. What kind of machine is it?

[metlmunchr]

As Cadcam and Gerry point out, both fixed right angle and variable angle spindle attachments are available. Koma Precision makes some nice ones. You can hold them in your hand, and they cost about as much as a new small car Probably would be a lot more economical to build a fixture to mount your current spindle parallel to the table.

[cadcam]

cost about as much as a new small car

That is for sure they can cost allot.

You can do a search on ebay. I have seen them there.

[mccafferty]

Donny,

I like the way you mounted your spindle. My machine is a Precix 5100 with a Perske 3HP spindle (photo attached). I was concerned about the cutting tool being hung out so far from the gantry. Do you have any problem with chatter out that far? However, I am only cutting .250" mortises so I wouldn't have to push it. The angle plate from Enco is certainly worth looking in to. Now that I think of it, I might be able to just drill additional holes in the mounting plate and rotate the spindle 90 degrees so it's coming out the side. For rail end mortising, there may be enough clearance though the approach you took would be more flexible for other projects.

Chagrin, we are using what I think are called floating tenons. Each part has a mortise and a hardwood tenon glues into each part. The rail material is Baltic birch so probably wouldn't cut good as a tenon, but it might be worth a shot.

I hadn't really thought about it, but if I get the spindle horizontal, I guess I'll have to lie to VisualMill about what I am doing. I haven't checked to see if you can change spindle orientation in the software.

Thanks all for your input,

Terry