I swivel the head on my Bridgeport fairly often to machine angles.

Here is an extreme example: you have a round piece of 8" billet stock
steel 30" long. You hump it up on your mill table on 2 herkin V-blocks
and get it straight and clamped down. Now you have to mill a deep V
in *one end*. What you do is, you slew the ram around to about 45°,
extend it way out, put on the BP right angle head, dial in the head
so its axis is parallel to the workpiece, put in your V cutter and
use your Y feed to mill the vee on the end. - GWE

wrote:
I've got a question (or a few) for the experienced machinists who
generously contribute so much to this group.

At my school there are two machine shops. The kind machinists once
told me about the versatility of the vertical mills. They explained
how the upper components can swivel, turn and be repositioned. The
ram? it appears can be moved 90 degrees away from the table off to the
side or behind the mill, and the head can be pivoted into compound
angles.

My question(s): Does anyone ever actually use these non-standard
positions for the mill? Doesn't the rigidity get lost at such long
lever arm lengths away from the table? Anybody got some pictures? What
is actully worked on in these settings? How is it mounted? This stems
from concluding you can't put a v-8 350 block on the table of a small
mill and work on it.