jim rozen wrote:
In article , Chuck Sherwood says...


Personally I would throw anybody out of my shop that attempted to
hold an endmill in a drill chuck of any kind.


LOL. And yet one invariably finds this *exact* question (can
I put an end mill in my drill press jacobs chuck and do milling)
on this and other fora all the time!

The discussion invariably devolves down to two sides, those who
suggest it possibly could be done, and those who say it's a
really bad idea.

Using harold V's maxim, which is you adhere to the standard
correct approach for any shop task, one would have to say 'don't
do it.' Why waste time and risk damaging shop equipment?

Doing this (end mill in jacobs chuck) shows the person is lacking
some vital information about how end mills, chucks, spindle bearings,
drawbars, and machinery in general works. As you say, anyone
who goes ahead and does in in *spite* of instructions to not do
so, deserves a free ticket out the door.

Jim


It's a BAD idea ... but for some people, sometimes, it works. Not often.
It's just one more of many ways to 'push one's luck'. *IF* you get away
with it, fine, but more likley you wont, not for long anyway. And the
price of failure can be high, to both the machine and the operator.

At best, with the light cuts required by the improper machine, you'll
have to take a LONG time to do much useful work, and the quality of work
produced will be poor.

Why punish yourself when a passable used milling machine can be gotten
for a couple hundred dollars? I paid $125 for my Benchmaster vertical.
True that it needed work, but it was useable 'as is', and already
superior to a drill press. You can get a NEW vertical micro-mill from HF
for $400, and the mini-mill is only about $100 more. None of these
options will be a great solution, but either will be WAY ahead of trying
to use a drill press for milling.

With the DP you need to buy an X-Y table ... a decent one'll cost you
about half what a used mill will cost(unless you get real lucky in the
used market)! And, with ANY of the options, you'll still need a bunch of
accessories and cutting tools. Once you figure all that in, the savings
on trying to use the DP are truly minimal.

Dan Mitchell
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