Thread: Looking for someone to cast a small milling table

Looking at getting a larger table made for my X2 mini mill, approx 500 X 110 X 60, anyone interested in giving me a rough price please, in cast iron. Can make a wooden copy of the shape, if required.
Regards
Kryn

Hi
Have you thought of making it out of epoxy and stone?
Made a new head on my mill out of it.... been working for 3-4 years no problems.
Just a thought......

Russell

I don't think there is many people doing backyard cast iron due to the high temps required. Most do whitemetal, brass, bronze & aluminium. The "wooden shape" is known as a pattern and I image the table would be a flatback. If you do make the pattern don't forget to allow a draft on all sides pulling in one direction to release from the mould. You have the choice of milling the T slots (easier) or producing a second pattern as a core box to make sand cores for the slots. This would make a much more complex pattern.

G'day Kryn,
If you can make your own patterns you could give someone like Billmans foundry in Castlemaine a try, it will be expensive but they do excellent work.
Have you considered using a slab of aluminium as a slave table which bolts to the existing table, no need for T-slots, just drill and tap a grid of holes that you can use to bolt things down.
Cheers,
Greg.

Thanks Greg, the reason I'm looking for a longer table, is that I'm wanting to make some equipment, that is longer than the bed of the mill, and find it is difficult to set up longer lengths, especially if you're teaching yourself. I priced a piece of cast bar, the length I want is $150.00, maybe I need to rethink the idea.
Kryn

I can't help with castings but I got two pieces each the size of a cricket ball cast before Christmas and it was $100 for the two. I would expect that a table sized casting would be much much more. You'd also have problems with screws and handles if you had a larger table.
Greg's suggestion of a bolt on (Al) slab may be a cheaper way to go. Another cheat may be (if your X3 is on a wide bench) to strap/ bolt a caster or two onto any overhang to support it.
If it's a larger one off that you are trying to do my table is around a metre long I think so could possibly do something for you.

Michael

Thanks for the offer Michael, I have a friend, whose son has a monster of a mill and lathe about 2.4 m BC. The idea was that I could say I made this myself without outside help, yes, I like being independent.
Kryn

Kryn,
would you consider cutting and machining a cast iron piece as big or bigger from another source i.e. scrap?
I may be able to help. There is an agricultural machinery w=recker here in Bendigo and I have bought some pretty big lumps from him. The largest was 60kg and cost $50 bucks.... There is a company with a very large bandsaw here too, they charge $20 or less for a 500mm x 100mm cut, to give you an idea.
You would want to rough machine then heat treat/stress releave belfor final dimensions machining.
PM me if I can help.

Originally Posted by rusel

Hi
Have you thought of making it out of epoxy and stone?
Made a new head on my mill out of it.... been working for 3-4 years no problems.
Just a thought......

Russell

Russell

Would that be similar to this stuff

Moglice ?

http://www.moglice.com/

Bill

Bill
It is in the same family of product being epoxy. what we did was a lot cheaper... have a look at a build here to get some more idea of what we did.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/uncate...head-hm45.html
Do you need more travel or just more table for fitting the part?

Russell

Looking for more travel, so parts can be machined in one go, rather than 2 or 3 repetitive set ups. Can't seem to get the set up right, so that it looks as if done in one setting, not lumps and bumps on it.
Will post a pix tomorrow.
Kryn

Kryn have your tried callington foundries Jim is pretty easy to get on with and knows his stuff
john

Originally Posted by tanii51

Kryn have your tried callington foundries Jim is pretty easy to get on with and knows his stuff
john

Thanks for the reply John. I've not tried him yet, a couple of others outside the forum have suggested him also. Will make up rough plug of what I'd like, and see what he can come up with.
Kryn

Originally Posted by rusel

Bill
It is in the same family of product being epoxy. what we did was a lot cheaper... have a look at a build here to get some more idea of what we did.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/uncate...head-hm45.html
Do you need more travel or just more table for fitting the part?

Russell

Hi Russell,
Interesting bit of moulding on your video.
I made a few Stupas for Buddhists years ago from epoxy and sand. A 10 to 1 mix.
This was so stiff I had a mate mixing and had to ram it into the mould.
The mould was made from muck (MDF) which had been sprayed with auto acrylic paint and then waxed with a canarba based release, we pulled three off no probs.
It was cored and had quite a small wall thickness so the ramming was slow going.
From memory they took a few hours to do.
The epoxy exothermed so no heat needed.
A similar mix is used in Europe to repair thousand year old churches so it should be ok up on the roof of their temples for a few years.
H.

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

Thanks Greg, the reason I'm looking for a longer table, is that I'm wanting to make some equipment, that is longer than the bed of the mill, and find it is difficult to set up longer lengths, especially if you're teaching yourself. I priced a piece of cast bar, the length I want is $150.00, maybe I need to rethink the idea.
Kryn

Good luck with this, IME you never, ever get more travel than table length, usually much less. My baby mill has a 30" table, you get 16" of travel. The other 2 mills in similar proportion. So you need a very long table and then it'll be cantilevered so far and so poorly supported that your chances of accurate work are very slim.

As for the price, if you can't afford around $150 for the casting, you're asking for someone with a backyard foundry to do you a favour because IMO that's a very reasonable price. I can speak from personal experience because I get stuff cast up for me and the last slab of iron, approx 450 x 300 x 50 thick was more than that price.

Then there's the machining. Once again, I've done this. Made a pattern for a 30" x 8" table, had it cast then machined it. You need a decent mill or big shaper or planer with AT LEAST 30" of travel, preferably 36" for a 30" table to allow for cutter runoff at the ends.

After that you get to do the gib and scrape it in.

Frankly that tiny mill isn't worth the time & effort involved.

PDW