"Trevor Jones" wrote in message
newsr8Tk.571$o15.112@edtnps83...

I think you may be doomed to frustration with trying to rely on the Z
axis drive.

You may be able to improve things with a stripdown and some fettling, but
probably not. It's the price of small and cheap tools, esp. machine tools.

Consider setting yourself up with a solid, clamp-on stop, that you can
use to set the depth that the drill can reach to, if there is not one
built in. Once the depth of cut is set by some trial and error, you can
then get on with cutting all the holes required. Or use a dial indicator,
or one of the cheap digital calipers, to build yourself a crude "DRO" to
use when moving the head up and down, and thus separate the movement of
the crank, from the movement of the head, if that makes any sense.


Or just go back to doing it faster and better on a drill press :-)
1) Clamp the plate to a flat wooden board.
2) Put a thin (0.018") credit card next to the plate on the board.
3) Touch the credit card with the tip of the drill bit. Set the drill press
stop.
4) Line-up the punch mark and drill
5) Repeat with the cut off drill
6) Tap

I am concerned that if I cannot do this simple operation on the milling
machine what will happen when I have to face mill etc. to precise depths. I
suppose the whole dial indicator thing will come to play. That will mean
getting a better one as the one I bought from Samona is a bugger to use - I
went through a whole period this morning when I thought the mill was
misbehaving when all along it was my indicator.

I have no previous experience with milling machines. Your initial comment
suggests that a bigger better machine is less likely to suffer from these
issues. Is that correct? I am kind of disappointed as I have seen home-made
mills which had better organized Z-depth stop and adjustment than this.

I may have to rethink the whole issue and priorities.

Thanks,

--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC