Morse Taper End Mill Holder

[zerodegreec]

I picked up a MT2 3/8" for a small very light duty job I need to do. (I know that running end mills in a drill press is not good because it will kill your bearing(s). I know I run the risk of damaging the press.)

Anyway, I noticed that it does not have the tang that my arbor has.



But the Morse taper End Mill holder has threads. Can you buy a tang to thred into it? In some ways I found that without it the shaft will spin loose if too much lateral pressure is applied. Good in a way since it wont let me put to much stress on the drill press.

[cam1]

Milling tends to want to pull the endmill and holder out of the spindle. The threads in MT series endmill holders are for a drawbar (a threaded rod that sucks the toolholder into the spindle). There are no tanged mt holders that are threaded. Not only do you stand the chance of damaging your drill press, you may seriously injure yourself if you run an endmill in a drill press for any thing other that a counterboring operation.

regards

[Geof]

And even doing a counterboring operation make sure the part is securely clamped.

It may not work because endmills are not self-centering like drills; when the sharp corners hit they try to walk around themselves and chatter like crazy.

Actually when I think more....don't even try because the possibility of fragments of endmill flying around is high.

[zerodegreec]

Thanks for the reply guys. Your signatures say it all IMHO.

I was hoping to use my press to side cut some holes to allow for adjustable bolting of a plate. So using the tips of the bit were secondary.

To be honest I also was hoping that I could also take a few thousand off of the face from time to time. But the chatter from bit and material made me end that thought in about 5 seconds.

I really dont have the coin to buy a mill right now (or in the near future). So I guess I will have to find another way.

thanks again. (so much for listening to the guy at Busy Bee Tools.)

[sti2011]

At the rate the economy is going, you'll be able to buy a really nice used bridgeport for not much more than the "scrap metal" value. I hope all this turns around pretty quick, it is looking scary out there..................

[zerodegreec]

I spent some more time in my shop tonight and came up with a solution to my problem. First off I found that I REALLY should avoid the climbing method at all costs... Its not good.

I ran it conventionally and got much better results with allot less chatter and stress. I went very slow with allot of cutting oil and just shaved the surface. I also found that the holder did not even move on me.

I did try to side bore and found it was a very slow go and not what I would call efficient.

Oh and I clamped the hell out of everything.

[handlewanker]

Hey Zero, all is not lost.

What you're trying to do is make it into a mill drill.

Buy one of those XY tables especially designed to go on a drill base.

next drop the head as close as you can to allow movement in the quill, but keep it close to the work.

The next problem is to make sure the quill of the drill can be locked in position, and although you can lock the feed lever on the side you still get a bit of up and down movement due to backlash in the quill rack and the gear it meshes with.

If you intend to make this into a "milling machine" for extremely light milling, then you must have the quill in a locked position when side cutting.

You could, if it has one, tighten the split in the quill barrel in the drill head so that the quill is locked tight, but failing that you could just drill through the side of the casting and tap it to allow a grub screw to press onto a copper plug against the quill outside diameter.

If that works OK, then the next problem is to make the morse taper holder a tight fit in the spindle end, and here you have a solution, because the end of the tool you have is threaded, and there is a hole through the side of the spindle and quill to allow a drift to knock out the morse taper drills, more of a slot.

Fit a piece of allthread into the tool end to stick out about 1/2".

When you push the tool into the spindle the end, the allthread will go up into the side slot where the flat end of the drill tang normally goes.

You can push a pin through the slot, and if the centre of the pin is drilled and tapped to accept the allthread, all you need to do now is screw the tool up untill it tightens into the pin, pulling it up into the morse taper.

Gettining it out is a bit tricky if the taper locks tight as you won't be able to turn it, so in that case it would be better to make a plug shaped like a drill tang and threaded on the end to screw into the tool end.

Now when you push the tool into the morse taper you'll see the plug end in the slot.

Use a scriber to mark the bottom of the slot on the plug end, through the side hole.

Drill a hole through the plug and make a tapered pin to go through the side hole that will pull the morse taper up tight.

I used this method to hold spot facing cutter arbors in the spindle of a horizontal borer.

I once converted an Atlas 1/2" driil press to a small mill, and drilled down through the splined end of the spindle, into the morse taper cavity, with a 3/16" extended drill bit to allow for a 3/16" diam draw bar.

The end of the spindle had a male taper to fit a Jacobs chuck on, and I removed this and remade the spindle and quill end to have a female 3 Morse taper, how would take some explaining but it got done and worked.

Although it worked, it only allowed very light milling due to the column being of such small diameter.

The fact that the splined end was soft enough to drill down through was the deciding factor in it's success.

In that build I used the saddle with crosslide of an old lathe to get the XY movement on the base.
Ian.