mounting mill sideways for cleaner screws and chips

[lesd]

I have a high quality Parker XY stage I may use in a mill, and was thinking: 'why not mount it tilted 90 degrees from vertical' ? This would help keep the coolant and chips away from the ball screws and bearings, and it would also let the chips fall away from the work better.
In other words, the tool would be horizontal.
I did a bit of searching, and this doesn't seem to be mentioned.
While my 12" by 12" stage does have accordions over the screws and cross roller bearings, I am positive that flowing debris would get in there.
Am I not thinking clearly about something that would be problematic with this 'sideways' vertical mill configuration ?

-Les

[DareBee]

It should work fine as long as it was designed to be run that way.
When turning on edge you will now have 1 axis that will be putting 100% of its weight on the ball screw. When the table needs to go vertical-up it will put the whole load of cut plus weight of table/vise, etc directly on the screw. When this assembly is mounted normal (flat/horizantal) it only needs to overcome inertia, friction and load of cut (I am sure this can equal as much as the vertical but would only be momentary loading). I would think it may be smart to add a counterbalance or similar device.

I agree that debris would clear much better, coolant flow would maybe be more tricky.