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Saito2

Benchtop mill

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For years I've been using hand tools to make various bits and pieces for my RC cars. If I had precision work to do and it didn't take longer than lunch break, I'd do them at work on a full size mill. That's no longer an option so I've begun to glance a benchtop mills for hobby use. I don't intend to machine steel, mainly plastic and possibly some aluminum. They aren't particularly cheap and I'm always worried about quality and parts availability as many (if not most) benchtop mills come from China. Does anybody have any tips? I've even foolishly considered making my own...:unsure:

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Are we talking manual or CNC... or maybe a manual that can be converted down the line. 

I've had two bench top manual milling machines and can add some of my insight if needed. I had a basic cnc router but I ended up just doing only a few jobs before selling it on as it was too much of a hassle. 

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I've run both (more CNC as it was my job for 7 years during the great recession) but this would just be a manual one for home use.

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2 hours ago, Saito2 said:

For years I've been using hand tools to make various bits and pieces for my RC cars. If I had precision work to do and it didn't take longer than lunch break, I'd do them at work on a full size mill. That's no longer an option so I've begun to glance a benchtop mills for hobby use. I don't intend to machine steel, mainly plastic and possibly some aluminum. They aren't particularly cheap and I'm always worried about quality and parts availability as many (if not most) benchtop mills come from China. Does anybody have any tips? I've even foolishly considered making my own...:unsure:

You don't intend to machine steel, but you will end up wanting to, so I would shy away from anything that can't. (Even if it's something simple like putting a flat on  a shaft). A steel capable machine will be much more robust that one that isn't , and therefore is likely to be more reliable. I bought a 2nd hand Warco machine about 14 years ago, and as my threads on here will testify, it's seen a lot of use since I've had it. Having investigated it, it was build some time in the 1970s, so is  over 40 years old and is still plenty usable. It's a belt drive machine and nothing has actually ever broken on it.   I think even this may well be a Chinese import, there are certainly plenty of copies out there very similar.

 

My advice would be to buy a solid 2nd hand manual machine, don't buy from pictures on the internet, actually go and see what you are buying, so you can judge the amount of wear in the machine. Well looked after machines should not have too many holes in the bed !. If possible get a machine with metric screws, as all Tamiya stuff is generally made to metric dimensions. 

I'm not going to mention vices, clamps, cutters, etc, as you used to run these for a living ;) , so you're aware of the additional costs surrounding get up and running. When I finally got a DRO for my manual, I did wish I'd bought one straight away, given the amount of time it saves not having to convert units and account for backlash, so get a DRO if you can. if not, the slides based on Chinese caliper tech are a cheap alternative if you're not going to be using coolant. 

I would definitely shy away from trying to make your own machine. I started off using a pillar drill and a cross vice, and it became immediately apparent that it was not going to be usable for machining, as the bearings couldn't take the side loads and it chattered terribly.

Just finally, my machine was expensive for me when I first bought it, but it has paid for itself several times over with the amount of stuff I've made myself. Since buying my lathe it I've made 44 alloy wheels on it, (Using the mill and the DRO to drill the bolt patterns)  as well a load of other stuff. What would 44 alloy wheels cost  ? (if they're £12 a pair that's £264 right there). 

Plus, if I had not bought the mill, I wouldn't have the scratch built models I've got now. How often have you thought (I wish someone would make a model of this.......). With a mill and a lathe you can make pretty much anything, so they'll always be a good investment, as long as your ideas come in faster than you can build them :)

 

 

 

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if you wanted to make one, David Gingery has a series of books that includes making a Lathe (its number 2 in the series). The first is casting metal! which you need for the lathe build. The books, especially early on, build on each other too.

I am by no means an experienced machinist (I only machined my first set of rims about 2 weeks ago), but in the last 3 or so years have I've gotten a lathe and mill, and before that I had a cheap Chinese cnc machine. After a lot or research I went new (it helped a lot that I could make it a tax deduction for my business), but I also ended up going as big as I could afford at the time. I am glad I did as new projects keep popping up and if I'd gone smaller, a lot would now be out of reach.

One word of warning though, I found I developed an addiction to buying new tooling :blink:

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4 hours ago, yogi-bear said:

 

One word of warning though, I found I developed an addiction to buying new tooling :blink:

I have been like that. I've got 2 welders, and am getting seriously into Wera tools.

 

 

Plus a woodworking lathe setup and workstation I made for the wife...:)

20181202_172942.thumb.jpg.ae0ec2ba0a95ebf792e9a1a186113c6e.jpg

 

20181202_173001.thumb.jpg.10f99f2262e1086fb0311c070f3d8f64.jpg

Then there is RC Stuff and accessories.....

 

And my car stuff...

 

20190209_121830.thumb.jpg.f2c403dec147c99920a4c2e503489f29.jpg

 

20181202_172942.jpg

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If your in the UK, have a look at the Warco WM 16 or 18. Both good mills for model engineering.

Not overly expensive and parts are available direct from Warco. 

I have the WM18. I fitted a 2 axis DRO to make life easier.

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Oh I would would love a desktop CNC VMC. The things I could do, I could dream all day about it.

I have a seat of Solidworks which comes with machining software if you stay on subs each year so that part is covered. On top of that I spend most of my days designing stuff that will go straight on CNC machines.

BUT ever time I get that itch to buy one, a new CNC is too expensive and any secondhand ones are either too big, too used, broken or made of cheese.

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I would love to go out shopping for used full size milling machine. But 3 things stand in my way. 1. Covid. I'm not going anywhere and dealing with people around here (most believing Covid is not real and thus take no precautions) 2. I don't have room for a full size mill in my garage. 3. I have absolutely no way to transport or move a full size mill into place if I somehow got it to my house. While a used full size mill might be best, I just can't get around these issues.

After researching mini mills, its seems most come out of the same factory in China (Sieg) but are speced differently depending on brand that sells them. The cheaper ones run gear drives and brushed motors (about $700) while the expensive ones (about $1000) have brushless motor and belt drive. 

Its so much money and I wonder if I'll get proper use out of it, but its so cool. Minimally, I need a small drill press but a mill is infinitely cooler (and infinitely more expensive, lol) .

 

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What do you plan on making?  I've zeroed in on four machines that cover a bit:

  1. 3D printer: It's been really helpful for making cosmetic parts and a few functional parts.  The results aren't as nice as an injection-molded part, but with some putty, sanding, primer, and flat paint things don't look half bad.  Examples in my showroom:  RM01 Lancia Stratos, F103GT GTR Nismo, Sport 3.2 Hot Wheel.  I paid $119 for a simple Tronxy X1 printer.
  2. A mini-CNC engraver, one of those Chinese 3018 models at a minimum.  I bought one for $129, built it, and did some testing with a gcode sending program, but I haven't made the opportunity to do something meaningful with it yet.  My main interest is in cutting 2 or 2.5 mm FRP or carbon fiber for chassis plates and damper stays.  I don't expect to cut aluminum or steel, or make a vacuum-forming buck, or plastic mold, etc.  I just want to be able to cut some smaller sheet materials.
  3. A vinyl cutter.  My wife had some input on this and wanted something capable of cutting fabric shapes for her quilting.  We ended up with a Cricut Maker.  I personally think it's too expensive for what it is, and the cloud-based software is not good for much other than sending designs to the cutter.  But, I used it for my Sport 3.2 Hot Wheel for making paint masks, window trim, the fuel filler hatches, and the Hot Wheels logos.  There are other future projects in mind where some complex paint masking will be simplified by cutting it in vinyl instead of masking it manually.
  4. A color laser printer.  I have a HP color laser printer that is also compatible with a Ghost White cartridge.  It's a two-step process, but it's possible to run some clear self-adhesive vinyl through the printer and selectively deposit a layer of white first, then on the second pass print the color graphics on the white.  I'm still working with this to dial it in a little bit more, but Scollin's Christmas Lunch Box has custom decals on it I made with the laser printer.

I think if I can cut some structural plates, print plastic parts, make paint masks and vinyl graphics, and create stickers then that covers a lot of what I want to do. One last piece of the puzzle I'm looking into is a budget 3D scanner to digitize and enlarge surfaces.  There are some 1/24 static models I'd love to enlarge and turn into 1/12 or 1/10 RCs someday, but that's somewhere in the vague future.

The machinery costs are not that bad if you think of it in terms of buying 3-4 more kits...  And how many kits have we all gone through? ;)

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8 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

What do you plan on making?  I've zeroed in on four machines that cover a bit

Thanks for the reply speedy. Aside from cutting chassis plates/shock towers, my main interest is structural parts (control arms, braces, etc.) machined out out stronger plastics or aluminum (along with dress-up parts, i.e. bumpers etc., from aluminum) and on the rare occasion, steel. Despite my CNC background, I am a moron with computers/programming. I made tooling adjustments through the computer of course but no Solidworks or Autocad work. We had a dedicated programmer at that job that couldn't turn a wrench, so he handled software and I handled hardware (alot of fixing crashed machines, good help is hard to find at $8 and hour, lol). I guess I'm just tired of making things with hand tools or want to expand what I can make by having greater accuracy. 

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I have a mini cnc/cheap Chinese one, and will not perfect, you'd be able to make chassis plates and a few other pieces. Software wise, I either download a model and process through a program called Cambam, or I do a 2D drawing and then into Cambam. I've only just recently started to learn how to do 3D modelling.

On this machine, and cheap 3040 model, with only a 200W motor,

Volvo-850-BTCC-Estate-build-38.jpg

 

I've made these parts. The aluminium is either 0.6 mm or 2 mm plate.

Sand-Scorcher-Build03.jpg

 

Fitted into a Sand Scorcher.

Sand-Scorcher-Build08.jpg

 

but rims would probably take too long to do. I've since upgrade to a slightly bigger machine with a better spindle, (home built controller box)

6040_cnc-build_10.jpg

 

and have made a couple of parts like this bull bar. Its do-able, but rigidity is an issue, so you can get a lot of chatter which translates into roughness. I'm still learning, so I know its possible to get a better finish. This part I draw up in illustrator as a 2D image and then programmed the cut path, not too hard to do.

bullbar-1.jpeg

58132_Mitsubishi_Pajero_-46.jpg

 

plastics like delrin, which good for swing arms etc, would be very do-able on a mini cnc machine. You'd be able to do carbon fibre as well, but you'll probably wear out cutter bits quickly and make sure you have very good dust suppression or extraction.

plus if you are keen, you can machine out bodies out of wood, but a lot of work:

Volvo-850-BTCC-Estate-build-74.jpg

 

I personally at the moment want to do rims and adapters, and the lathe is much better suited. They are more rigid and can cut faster.

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Once you get set up with things like CNC machines, lathes and 3d printers your hobby evolves from driving RC cars to making RC cars...not that I'm complaining. It's just what happened to me.  The silver porsche will never be finished because I keep coming up with better ways to 3d print it.  The Red Lotus is a vacuum formed body expertly finished by a customer, Big Al. 

Porsche804.jpeg

BigAl02.jpg

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59 minutes ago, manny said:

Once you get set up with things like CNC machines, lathes and 3d printers your hobby evolves from driving RC cars to making RC cars...not that I'm complaining. It's just what happened to me.  The silver porsche will never be finished because I keep coming up with better ways to 3d print it.  The Red Lotus is a vacuum formed body expertly finished by a customer, Big Al. 

That's where I see myself going.  Basically large-scale "models suitable for radio control."  Less emphasis on speed/power/tech and more on modeling.  I've been going through several phases:

  • Building and driving lots of chassis types (10 years ago)
  • Zeroing in on some favorite genres (5 years ago)
  • Modifying base kits with some custom parts and graphics (the last few years)
  • Eventually, doing a complete design and fabrication just for the fun of it (somewhere in the future)

Still on step 3 at this point...

I've been a big computer nerd since the early 80s and the amount of useful open-source software out there is amazing for mechanical/electrical/software engineering and product design.  That software and the machines people are creating in the Maker movement really unlock some capabilities for hobbyists like us.

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Oh man, now you guys have got my wheels turning, so to speak...

For many years, I ran CNC engraving machines, making signs. I've actually found that I miss working in the shop, now that I'm in the front office doing all design/project management work. I never thought of getting a small CNC machine for home use, but it's actually a really good idea. Much more intersting to me than the 3D printing idea, which I can see the possibilities of, but isn't really something I care to learn. I'm already used to thinking in terms of cutting shapes out of flat material.

The homemade "suitable for radio control" model idea really appeals to me as well. I did build that Land Rover, using only hand tools, but it's mostly flat aluminum pieces, and I don't think I can do anything more complicated than that using tin snips and a hammer. But a router would open up all kinds of possibilities...

Off to start googling hobbyist CNC machines... good thing it's Friday and I don't have much to do.

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2 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

That's where I see myself going.  Basically large-scale "models suitable for radio control."  Less emphasis on speed/power/tech and more on modeling.  I've been going through several phases:

  • Building and driving lots of chassis types (10 years ago)
  • Zeroing in on some favorite genres (5 years ago)
  • Modifying base kits with some custom parts and graphics (the last few years)
  • Eventually, doing a complete design and fabrication just for the fun of it (somewhere in the future)

Still on step 3 at this point...

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm on the same step and thinking of progressing to step 4. The rough plan for me is to use the mill to make improved parts for Tamiya kits as practice and then work up to building a whole car from scratch.

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I like this thread! I too am now more into the part making rather than the driving. One of the reasons I got into RC was I realised I was never going to restore a car or build a kit car. Not enough space or money :mellow:

I'm hovering around step 3 too, my main hold up is finding the time to make anything. I managed to machine a set of rims for my Landfreeder a couple of weeks ago and there would have been 6 to 8 hrs all up. I think as I do more, I'll get quicker though.

And as well as machining, I also had a go at  folding 0.6 mm aluminium metal to make panels and chassis plates. This is an attempt for a Ford Escort plate, the buck for it I machined on the cnc machine.

TA02-Ford-Escort-Mk-2-1600-11.jpg

And a hand folded aluminium folded Delorean body I'd started. I use a print onto clear vinyl to add the details. 

Delorean-Scratch-Build-7.jpg

 

I've since learn how to get crisper edges and will have another go one day!

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6 hours ago, manny said:

Once you get set up with things like CNC machines, lathes and 3d printers your hobby evolves from driving RC cars to making RC cars...not that I'm complaining. It's just what happened to me.  The silver porsche will never be finished because I keep coming up with better ways to 3d print it.  The Red Lotus is a vacuum formed body expertly finished by a customer, Big Al. 

Porsche804.jpeg

BigAl02.jpg

they look amazing, have you driven the cars? and videos :D

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Here's where my head was at a year ago...  This is kind of my end target, although the whole operations/business side of things isn't very appealing to me.  I just love tinkering and building things.  If I could implement all of this for myself as a hobbyist, I'd be extremely happy.  I think if you click on the image it'll enlarge.

1404331059_RCDesignManufacturingFlow.thumb.jpg.6005e59cb29e8d14e93a06c0e18737d0.jpg

All the software is open-source, so that's a huge help.  It takes time to learn and get proficient at all these packages.

The 3D printer, CNC engraver, laser printer, and vinyl cutter, and (future) 3D scanner would be the most expensive and useful items.  A heat gun, scissors, cutter, stapler, and impulse sealer is small potatoes in comparison.  Other things that would take some money and space include an anodizer, resin dispenser, and vacuum former, but those are way off in the future if ever.  There's still plenty to learn and try with the other machinery first.  My short term goals are to get a little more proficient with what I have, and maybe make a few machine upgrades for extra capacity or handling different materials.

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Some real thought sure went into that @speedy_w_beans. Nice. I guess, as simplistic as it seems nowadays, I always had early Associated Electrics in my head when I pictured mass producing an RC buggy myself. I suppose because when I look at an RC10, there's very little "mystery" about how each part was produced, though the actual design itself was revolutionary.

I have fallen down a ridiculously deep rabbit hole with this whole mill decision. Today I stumbled across Sherline's micro mills and lathes. A lathe that can be converted to a mill plus backwards compatible parts for older machines plus made in the USA (since '74) all had me super intrigued. They're probably too small, but cool none the less. Then I considered a lathe with a milling attachment before circling around to a separate mini mill and mini lathe. Ugh, so many variables to digest. Probably processing information in my sleep at this point, lol. 

 

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2 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Some real thought sure went into that @speedy_w_beans. Nice. I guess, as simplistic as it seems nowadays, I always had early Associated Electrics in my head when I pictured mass producing an RC buggy myself. I suppose because when I look at an RC10, there's very little "mystery" about how each part was produced, though the actual design itself was revolutionary.

I have fallen down a ridiculously deep rabbit hole with this whole mill decision. Today I stumbled across Sherline's micro mills and lathes. A lathe that can be converted to a mill plus backwards compatible parts for older machines plus made in the USA (since '74) all had me super intrigued. They're probably too small, but cool none the less. Then I considered a lathe with a milling attachment before circling around to a separate mini mill and mini lathe. Ugh, so many variables to digest. Probably processing information in my sleep at this point, lol. 

buying the right tool is hard, do you go cheap or expensive etc, and there is always a compromise in what it will do and what you need to do or do you find an all in one option. One idea I discovered is if I am not sure, I buy the cheapest tool that I think will do the job and then use that as much as I can. If after a period of time I want more, then I upgrade, if I didn't get a lot of use out of it, then I usually get rid of it knowing I probably wasted the least amount of money. Thats how I bought my cnc machine and a few others. Of course if I know I want something, like the lathe, I saved for as along as I could and bought to my limit. I but I also spent about 6 months looking and I did look at the mill and lathe combo's as well. What made be choose what I did was the realisation I am in this for the long haul, so when I retire I'll probably still be doing this. That also made me look at what I might else be doing, not that I have an idea of course! but it meant I looked beyond the immediate projects I wanted to do.

In the end though, unless you buy an utter piece of crap, I don't think you can go too wrong with either a lathe, mill or combo. Although with a combo you'll probably have more bits it to make a broader range of parts, but a lather or mill can be made to do the other. And you get a better idea once you start making chips.

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The 3d printed bodies have yet to be driven..My friend, Lightfoot and some other F1 enthusiasts in Southern California using the vacuum formed Vf-1 body organized a race at the Tamiya track;  This was a few years back and possibly the highwater mark of my RC career.

 

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30 minutes ago, manny said:

The 3d printed bodies have yet to be driven..My friend, Lightfoot and some other F1 enthusiasts in Southern California using the vacuum formed Vf-1 body organized a race at the Tamiya track;  This was a few years back and possibly the highwater mark of my RC career.

 

thanks for posting that, very awesome! 

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