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If you're using tapered roller bearings in your lathe that's probably why they were fine even if you hammering on them. They have a line contact with the race, as opposed to a ball bearing's point contact, so it takes significantly more force to damage the race or rolling elements. My mill uses...

The spindle is only supported by the bearings, and does not slide up or down in the bearings. So any impact to the spindle is directly transmitted to the bearings. In fact, due to bearing preload, the entirety of a hammer blow to the drawbar is absorbed by just the top bearing.

For the MT3 spindle release I took an 8" C clamp and modified the modified it to fit between the spindle and tooling: I then removed the pad from the clamp's screw, leaving just the ball end: Then I turned a partial spherical dimple in the end of the drawbar: Now when I want to release the...

I really don't think anything is wrong, and my loosening problems stem from the drawbar being barely tightened. I doubt I'd see these problems with an R8 spindle since the drawbar is tightened down much harder with those. I think I've worked out an alternative method for releasing the tool...

Tapers are in good shape. In fact, I just replaced the spindle.

I just have a X2 mini mill and its drawbar is only threaded on the end which engages the tool, like this: I'm going to put some blue Loctite on those thread to keep it from loosening from the tool. I could tighten the drawbar more to keep it from loosening, but at that point it becomes very...

Loctite on the drawbar threads. It doesn't surprise me that it's loosening considering it's not very tight, is spinning at 1,000RPM, and the head can vibrate.

I think the issue I'm having isn't the drawbar being too loose, but that the drawbar keeps loosening up on me while being used. I think I'll try Loctite on the drawbar to keep it in place.

I'm going to be heating up an iron casting to install a bearing. It's the first time I'll be doing this. If I heat up the cast iron to 175*F is there any chance of it warping on me? My research says I'd need to heat it up a lot higher than that before it might start moving on me, but I figured I...

Well, I just found a supply of SKF 7206 ABEC-3 angular contact bearings for a decent price, so they're definitely a player now. The question is, how do you deal with grease retention when the bearing is on a vertical shaft? It seems like gravity would slowly pull the grease out of the bearing...

I've considered it. However, getting a shielded or sealed high quality angular contact bearing is pretty expensive, and I think a high quality radial bearing will do better than a questionable quality angular contact bearing. Considering the orientation of the bearings on the mini mill, I think...

Since I'm already replacing my mini mill's spindle, I figured I'd replace the bearings as well. The stock bearings were painted over and are cheap no-names. I'd like to install good Japanese bearings like NSK or SFK. My questions are: 1. Do I need to get ABEC-3 or ABEC-5 bearings? Almost...

Pretty simple question: how much torque is needed for the MT3 drawbar on my mini mill? I hate doing things by feel.

My mill has a MT3 spindle and I really hate having to hammer on the drawbar to release my tooling. Hate it. I'm currently using an end mill holder, which is ok, but there is invariably more run-out than I'd like. Since the X2 uses small end mills the run-out is an issue. A huge plus is easily...

Just an update. My power feed is still running strong, and I couldn't be much happier. At some point I'd like to move the control box to the front of the mill to keep my arm away from flying chips, but that's about it. My mill is set up with TouchDRO (a free Android based DRO) which gives me the...

Success! After taking several more shallow passes it's flat enough for my project. Thank goodness. Also, now I know better than to use cold rolled again.

So if you do an angled cut you'll generally be asking for trouble?

Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment to heat it up to 1200* and hold it there for an hour. I may just scrape this piece and try again, this time not machining any faces. If I have a long bar of cold rolled steel and I need to cut off a piece, do I risk warping if the cut is at 90* to...

Quick question, if cold rolled steel is going to warp, does it do so immediately or can it happen over several hours?

After working on it some more last night I'm almost positive it's cold rolled stress I'm dealing with. Before I milled the face of the block I checked the opposite face and it was flat, when I checked it again last night it was slightly warped. So I milled 0.008" off that face as well, along...