can a mill out preform a lathe on some lathe work

[Delw]

You bet it can when it comes to plastic. Dont over look your mill for doing lathe work it can be a real time saver and create less frustration.
before I had a lathe I did lots of lathe work on a mill mostly out of alum and steel ya gotta do what you gotta do.

lathe job uhmw about 4" dia 5" tall
lathe runs about 2.50 seconds from part to part then we still have to tap on a rigid tap machine due to the small tap and you just WONT get a good thread otherwise. even with a tapmatic we had problems pulling the 1st to threads.

mill runs each part at about 1.20 seconds each doing 4 at a time each and I havent tweaked it. 100% perfect part better od and id finish. parts are round with in .001 were taking a 2.2" long 3.750 dia od cut also with taper less than .001

not only are the parts better and faster you also dont have to dick with stringy chips mill has shreaded cheese chips that come out of chip convery and dont get tangled like they do in the lathe.
both machines lathe and mill have chip conveyors.
Lathe runs 4 tools mill runs 8 or 9 tools
0 % scrap on the mill
2-4% reworkable scrap on the lathe. mainly finish due to chip build up
both machines burr free.

Delw
fake edit
this was on a haas vf2ss

[Anders6612]

If it works, then it is perfect. I have done some turning in a milling machine,
with a chuck in spindle and turning tools at the table, it works perfekt.
Need is the mother for all inventions.

[Delw]

now thats cool, Ive only done that a few times and on a few pcs.
one was a 4" 10-32 special bolt, I put a die in the in a 5c collet holder and put the stock in a collet holder then fed it down that was on my hand mill, came out with a perfect 10-32 thread. the other one I did was turn a small od on the mill with a tool holder in a vice. wasnt too bad.
ive heard of guys doing exactly what your saying on 10-20 part runs but never seen it done.

Delw

[Geof]

I agree many operations that 'traditionally' would be done on a lathe can be done faster on a mill. I wanted some Delrin pins 3/32" dia, 3/4" long with a 1/4" dia head 0.20" long. Turning Delrin that diameter and length is impossible but a new tool in the mill interpolated it in a matter of seconds; to size and parallel within +/- 0.001".

[Delw]

How ya been geof,

Never say impossible, you should have started with 1" dia delrin use one pass to make hole part

I saw a guy do a diamon knurl on a mill with a lathe cut knurl cutter and the part in the spindle.

[Geof]

.....Never say impossible, you should have started with 1" dia delrin use one pass to make hole part ......

Tried it, with 3/4", didn't work.

[Delw]

then its impossible. now you got me thinking I wanna try it. lol

[txcncman]

You bet it can when it comes to plastic. Dont over look your mill for doing lathe work it can be a real time saver and create less frustration.
before I had a lathe I did lots of lathe work on a mill mostly out of alum and steel ya gotta do what you gotta do.

lathe job uhmw about 4" dia 5" tall
lathe runs about 2.50 seconds from part to part then we still have to tap on a rigid tap machine due to the small tap and you just WONT get a good thread otherwise. even with a tapmatic we had problems pulling the 1st to threads.

mill runs each part at about 1.20 seconds each doing 4 at a time each and I havent tweaked it. 100% perfect part better od and id finish. parts are round with in .001 were taking a 2.2" long 3.750 dia od cut also with taper less than .001

not only are the parts better and faster you also dont have to dick with stringy chips mill has shreaded cheese chips that come out of chip convery and dont get tangled like they do in the lathe.
both machines lathe and mill have chip conveyors.
Lathe runs 4 tools mill runs 8 or 9 tools
0 % scrap on the mill
2-4% reworkable scrap on the lathe. mainly finish due to chip build up
both machines burr free.

Delw
fake edit
this was on a haas vf2ss

Unbelievable. 2.5 seconds with 4 tools changes on lathe. 1.2 seconds with 8 or 9 tool changes on mill. Not counting machining time, less than 0.6 seconds per tool change. Unbelievable.

[Geof]

I rather suspect the correct time interpretation is 2 minutes 50 seconds and 1 minute 20 seconds.

[Delw]

thaanks geof, thats what it is. I hit . instead of :

[txcncman]

Well, shoot. Now I am disappointed.

[Machineit]

Many years ago when I used to drag race, we used to have meets where you just "Run What You Brung." No classes, just a safety inspection and you ran. The reason was that most could not afford to run competitively in any class, but just wanted to race.

Well, it is somewhat the same in the machining world. Not all of us have all of the toys that we would like to have. Yup, sometimes an enterprising person can figure ways to do jobs in a mill faster than a lathe. One thing that makes this doable is multiple work offsets.

Then you have the shop like mine where there is no CNC lathe, just plans for the future, so you have to do some lathe work on the mill.

This weekend, while most were having fun, I was working to do a job for an ex-employer. They have no CNC lathe either, but they do have numerous mills. They just have anyone who can figure another way to do the job.

Below are some parts I did this weekend on my Haas VF-2 and my Haas HA5C. A little tricky but overall it was a fun challenge. It was a very profitable weekend. Material is Stainless Steel.

Think out of that box and figure a way to do the job. That CNC mill can do some awesome work!

Mike