Originally Posted by roninB4 It's not so much what you can't do because almost anything can be achieved, given the right tooling for a mill. The limitations are a matter of what degree of accuracy can be achieved. A BP style knee mills is considered a graduated drill press for close tolerance work. They're fine for work that's +/- .0015 and location is a function of wear on the leadscrew or the limitation of the DRO and it's accuracy. There are good reasons for using a lathe, grinder, EDM, or jig bore instead of a mill. A mill is versatile but it's a matter of how well they'll do a given job. |
Out of interest a Milling machine is completely different to a Lathe. But some machining functions are common to each machine. Both can Drill, Ream Bore, face to name but a few. But neither a lathe nor a Mill (at least not the type of mill described here) can cylindrical or surface grind. And it is an impossible function to do EDM (modern EDM processes Wire or Ram) on a lathe or mill. A Jig Boring machine (traditional Jig Borer) too is a completely different design (provides a different set of functional methods) of machine to a Knee Mill. In some ways a BP type mill IS a very versatile machine, but to say you could use an EDM (wire or Ram types), Grinder, lathe, Jig Borer INSTEAD of a mill is silly (understatement). And to say that a BP style Knee mill is a graduated drill press is just as (see previous sentence).