2) Judging by others' comments, it appears that one of the biggest
disadvantages to the little Mill/Drills is that you lose your position
when you move the head up and down. Has anyone done anything to address
this?
Two suggestions
1/ Try to plan your work so you don't have to move the head. Measure up
your various tools eg your R8 collet chuck, drill chuck etc so you know in
advance how much room you need to change from one to another. Then when
starting a job you can set the head just far enough above the work to
extract one tool holder and replace it with another.
Yeah, I've tried that.. Mostly my problem has been in drilling/taping
1/2"+ holes where if I have the head high enough to get my drill bit out
of the chuck, it is too high for my center drill. I guess I could buy
longer center drills but that doesn't really 'solve' the problem.
2/ Have a look in Model Engineers Workshop there have been a numbe of
articles on this. Quite a good suggestion was to bolt a laser pointer on the
mill head (Horizontal plane) and aim it at a wall some distance away. Draw a
vertical line on the wall. If the mill head is rotated when it is raised or
lowered then you can get it back into alignment by moving the head until the
laser spot is on the line again.
Now that is a very interesting and novel solution. I think I like that!
Is Model Engineers Workshop a magazine?
--C.S.
