UPDATE – See photos from the event above. After pointers from our generous instructor, we successfully milled aluminium and brass. The burrs on the brass were clean enough that they peeled off. We’re planning to add a belt sander to quickly deal with burrs. Said instructor donated an indicator for levelling our vise. It turned out that our 3/8″ collet had a sticky keyway, so we’ll have to figure out how to file down collets in the future, or order better ones.
We’ve just outfitted our new vertical milling machine with a machinist’s vise, a set of collets and end mills, a clamping kit and parallel set, and a custom made workbench. Join us tonight for a test spin with a professional machinst who will be visiting and giving us tips as we practice on materials like aluminum, brass, delrin, nylon, wood and UHMW. You don’t have to know anything about metalworking to check it out. We’ll be starting between by 7:30PM.
