Sieg X2 Mill? and lathe?

[Joel779]

Hello all,

I'm just getting into this machine tool thing, purchased an 8x14 lathe from HF, and just got shipment of my SX3 the other day. I'm going to be building this up to CNC with ball screws etc etc.

The question I have for the group is how much of a limitation is the spindle speed for this machine. I have a friend with a Taig and he is continually telling me how much problems I will have with such a slow spindle speed.

I am primarly interested in scratch building G1 live steam locomotives, so a lot of stuff I do will be small size. What is the smallest mill bit I can expect to work on brass with this machine? I know there are hoops that guys jump through to get higher speeds but I would like to avoid this if the machine will work for my needs.

Thanks a bunch.

Joel

 

[spuddevans]

What is the smallest mill bit I can expect to work on brass with this machine? I know there are hoops that guys jump through to get higher speeds but I would like to avoid this if the machine will work for my needs.

Hi Joel,


I have the X2 which is the small brother of your SX3, before I converted to CNC the smallest endmill I succesfully used was 2mm. I did try some 1mm carbide endmills but was a little too heavyhanded with the Z-axis feed and snapped them.

However, since converting I am very happy to use 1mm endmills as I have greater control over depth of cut and feed speeds. This tells me that it is possible (with care ) to use such small bits even on a manual machine if you are easy on the dials.


Tim

 

[lazylathe]

Bugger!
Looks like the mill and lathe deal may fall through....
The guy is not responding to any e mails...

Oh well the hunt starts from the beginning again....

Andrew

Well it looks like it is still on!!
Something came up and he had some family matters to take care of.
So next weekend it is!
Filled this weekends workshop time with stripping an Atlas 618 and preparing it for a clean and paint!
For anyone thinking of doing this, it is a LOT of work!!
Be prepared to spend a long time if you want to do it correctly!

Mine came from a school and the kids decided to paint it silver without taking anything apart... :-\
One good thing that came from it is that i now have a contact in the metal tooling world!!! ;D
The guy repairs compressors and is often in schools and universities and gets to choose equipment as part payment!
I gave him my long list and he already knows of a few sources!! :big:

Andrew