Milling Machine Upgrades - New Vise & DRO Installation 

G'day everyone. Hope you like the new mill upgrades. Hope the tutorial is helpful. I didn't make any CAD drawing for this, since it was all done in situ, but I always happy to draft some up if you would like. I am still deciding on whether to install the DRO on the back, so I'll let you all know if I make the swap. More mill upgrades due to come in the future. Cheers

As Jim Korman points out below, pull the vise apart, clean, deburr, re-lube etc. I'm not saying yours will be the same, but the two 4" mill vises I bought for about 3 times as much each weren't exactly good solid castings, nor were they poured from anywhere close to the best cast iron. Under the paint they were full of bondo filled voids which drastically weakened the vise bed allowing it to flex under even average tightening pressures. But my suspicion is the real problem was mostly due to the cast irons poor composition. Yes those vises were accurately ground and looked real good where it showed because I checked them on a surface plate. But in reality it was wasted effort because you can't add rigidity later when the casting itself is that weak. It's best to indicate the vises rear fixed jaw while tightening the vise with a thick part at various elevations on the parallels. I'd also check for any moving jaw lift. Without that check you can't know how much the vise or jaws are actually deflecting. That check is even more important with a dro because that fixed jaw movement can be enough to change your parts Y axis location to make a measurable difference on higher accuracy parts. Any inaccuracy in your work holding will always be reproduced in your finished parts. Thinking "it's good enough for what I do" is faulty reasoning. Yes for most items it will be, until something better comes along that does require higher accuracy. That's when all the cleaning, deburring and fine adjusting pays for itself. I also 100% agree with the other poster below about pulling the table X,Y axis, feed screw and nuts apart for again a through cleaning, deburr, re-lube and proper gib and feed nut adjustment. It will be a much different machine if you do and I suspect it will vastly reduce your back lash and be far more accurate and much smoother on the table movements. These machines are factory adjusted fairly loose to compensate for any contamination and the applied anti rust preservative. To someone that doesn't know what they should feel like, that loose adjustment feels ok. It's impossible to remove all what the factory left in there or that preservative without pulling it apart and washing all the parts down in a good solvent. So it's impossible to adjust to the minimum clearances while still being smooth to operate. Any far east machine requires this simply because there's no money left for the factory to do this. While I didn't find that much grinding dust in mine, there was enough I'm very happy I did so. Using an actual industrial formulated to do the job way lube also helps with how smooth the table moves as well. The one video shot showed taking a far too deep of cut with that fly cutter. They are and have always meant to be only a very light finishing tool. Yes the tool itself can do so without any damage, but the mill isn't designed to withstand the hammering that interrupted cut produces. What happens is your then slowly beating both the spindle splines and bearings to death. The actual noise is created by the spindle splines bouncing back and forth within there clearance range as the load is taken up and released every revolution. Unless you have a minimum of two teeth engaged in the cut such as with a multi tooth face mill, that hammering is inevitable, so the depth of cut has to be light to reduce it's effects. My mill is a whole lot larger and heavier Bridgeport clone. At most I'll take a .010" depth of cut in aluminum and maybe .005" or less in steel with any fly cutter. Even with a face mill I'll reduce the feed rate a bit as the teeth start to enter or leave the beginning and end of the cut. And yes I do know there's many videos showing large diameter fly cutters like the Tormach taking large depths of cut. Those are misleading and anyone who understands what's really happening mechanically will refuse to try it. There also ample videos around where that hamming can be clearly heard with fly cutting and large depths of cut if you know what it sounds like. A fly cutter is an excellent and cheap to produce tool for allowing much better surface finishes. But the built in machine limitations have to be understood to use them properly.

I got the same vise and I am very happy with it!!

I operated a Cincinnati Mill in a track shop (railroad track) for years. The vise I ordered for the mill could do double angles. For one it would twist on it's base which had measurements in degrees, plus the vise could be raised on one end creating another angle. This vise made the mill much more useable in making the many parts needed and much more interesting.

First video I’ve seen of your ,well enjoyed it subscribed 👍

Congrats on the new upgrades! I know there are few things that get me more excited then new things for my shop. Cant wait to see the stuff you'll make👍🏻

I find the first and most important upgrade of offshore equipment is a complete disassembly, clean, de-burr, hone, flatten, repair of the components. If you treat it as a kit that has been assembled for 3D reference you end up. with a much better understanding of the machine. Cheers

People really underestimate this type of mill. A couple of upgrades make them very good. I have the same vise and it is accurate enough for hobbies. I made my DRO out of a caliper. I don’t do high precision anyway, so it works out for me. Nice job 👍

Two great upgrades there mate, having both these on your machine now will make it feel like a whole different machine. Hope you enjoy them.

Great upgrade man. The DRO looks super:))

A couple years ago on "Build Something Cool", Dale reviewed one of these Chinese vices by comparing it to an American made one. A melee ensued in the comment section. On one side, viewers felt he was biased against the lower cost Chinese one. They accused his review of being nothing more than jingoistic American fluff. On the other, you had viewers defending his review as being accurate and well founded. The discussion quickly devolved into hurling insults at each other. It was one of the most entertaining comments I've read on RU-vid. A lot of commotion over a vice review. LOL!

Oh no, the last time a RU-vidr I like bought chinese vise, he disappeared and has not returned ever since... TOT we miss you so much.. :(

Even if it seems like a lot of money for a very boring tool, when there’s so much cooler stuff out there to spend hard earned dollars at… The simplest type of band saw will be the biggest improvement you never knew you wanted. The same goes for a decent belt sander. How I know… Well 🙄😉 Nice channel. Keep it up.

That vise is quite awesome for the price, I know for sure because I got one of the same type. Just one thing you really want to do to it, make a solid fixed jaw without a key, improves the accuracy unbelieveable. Greetings from Germany

Actually - the pre-chipped paint didn’t need that close of an inspection 😂🤣😂. Congratulations - definitely a worthy addition that I suspect will be upgraded at some point as most things in your shop show up as kits that need some love. 👍👍😎👍👍

Great video, I’ve just bought a 5” vice and I am looking at getting a DRO so your video was very informative, I am looking forward to seeing the video of the scale covers you are going to make

Congratulations on the upgrades! I agree with you completely. A dro on a lathe isn't necessary at all, but on a mill it makes everything easier.

I bought the same vise. The ball oiler broke on mine the 1st time I used it. I took it out and removed the spring with a pick and stretched it longer. Then I reinstalled it and its fine now. good luck with yours

Well done video and project. Thanks.

Highly recommend you make a key for the base of your vise. On smaller machines like that, it makes it very handy to take the vise on and off and not have to retram it in.

5:06 better than nothing. msyby need buy my own set for work. waiting 15 year some tools lol

I have a vice for my mill drill that looks like the same one you have. I found that the jaws in my were not flat. They had a bow in them of about .020 of an inch or 0.5mm so that they were thinner in the middle. I flat-en them by hand lapping them with a sandpaper on my table saw . They now work much better.

where abouts in aus are you? I have a machineshop in SEQ and you would not believe the amount of old Tooling and offcuts I throw out every year

You mention here that the linear scale for the x-axis you did bought was to long did you cut this of ?

Nice! I got the same parallels and model of vice. I went for a 3 axis dro but z has been sitting in the box for months while I try to figure out how to fit it 😁

Great job man...;-)

Nice work, thanks for posting. These small mills to a great job within their range. I have a 30 year old Busy Bee column mill that a lot of people turn their nose up at but if you know how to use it it is better than the Rusnok it was copied from in some ways. Thanks again.

Nice progress, now you add a vice stop to your project list.

You didn't say, but I've a very similar vise. I took mine completely apart to clean as there was grit in various places, especially the screw. Spent an hour or so with a file and softened the edges of most surfaces, then all new lubrication where needed. As you note, it's not a bad value for the price.

Im about to purchase a Dry kit my Sieg x2.7L and am confused by the way they are measured. I know in the vid you said you got the wrong size so what sizes do I need for the mill? Thanks for your vids, they have helped me a lot. Cheers!

Could you offset the vyse away from the centre of the table to stop interference with the hand wheel?? Stavros

That great you a new vise

Damn mate, midnight on a Sunday? Bit hard on the local crowd! In all seriousness, loving the content as always!

I purchased the same mill about the same time you did. I want to add a DRO and would really appreciate any CAD drawings you have of all the parts you made.

I would like to see you install air springs for the z axis. I will be doing it for my mill sooner or later, so it would help me a lot, as you tend to have good ideas. I will use your dro mounting brackets, they are nice.

Nice Video 👍Why did you buy the led display and not the lcd? Is there a special reason?

So what is your day job if this Is a hobby?

I've never run one of these hobby mills, but with the table size, I always think that they would be ideal for a two-piece vise. Did you consider this approach? What do you see as the downsides?

I think you may need a 3d printer. 😎😁

Given how common it is to fit DRO's to these units, you think the manufacturers of the machines would have started making them a bit more DRO friendly by now. Nice job.

Is that a crack on the lower part of the moving jaw on the old vise? It looked like the jaw was flexing on that crack.

I was thinking about getting one of these for some light duty stuff. Is it worth it?

Qm vice series is great for the price, I have one, qm80 and like it. But why only 2 axis DRO?? Z digital scale is also very important and useful! And there are new types of DRO (YH800 for example), price is the same as this classics led 7segment, but they have a nice big tft screen with some fun options.

7:40 u really need a tool to cut metal faster

Is there is some institution that i can report him for cutting stock by hand in Australia? police, army, gov...?

make a split vice, i used cheap hf vise, cut in half and drilled 4 holes.

Got the same Vice..🤙..($65 U.S.(Trump era, not biden..it went way up)Amazon sale..Not too bad..Not great but it’s worth the price..)

3:56 99.9% its not. it could be 0.00 or more and how you read it they not even know who build it lol. its printed and same come for every of them 0.04 is too much but thats promised it could be 0 lol. its funny if make own it will be 0 paraller but factory they promise 0.04 xD

_cough_ power feed _cough_