Tormach Stand Looks Good, Let's Build One

[BobWarfield]

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

[phil burman]

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

Originally Posted by BobWarfield 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

[BobWarfield]

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!

Best,

BW

[Cruiser]

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 !)

[Jay Kyle]

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

[vacpress]

pictures?

[Jay Kyle]

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

[Jay Kyle]

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

[Enraged]

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.

[swarfmacdaddy]

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.

[CNCPlastic]

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

[phil burman]

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
Phil

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