Knee mill riser - most useful height?

[ducdon]

Need a cheaper riser? Start fabricating one. If you need more amps to weld with then come to my place or another buddy.

On my mill the table goes too high. Can anyone explain why they would build it this way? Look at the photos. Is this typical a on other mills? The table actually goes 1/2” higher than the bottom of the spindle. I wish they had built it 4 inches offset the other way. Once I get this riser installed what am I going to think? The table goes so high I “think” it’s going to be ok.


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Here is the riser beside the vise.

Probably the table goes that high to accommodate milling things that hang over the back of the table when using the horizontal spindle. That's a really cool mill. Do you have tooling to use the horizontal spindle?

 

[YYCHM]

Where does this riser thing get installed? I'm not following what it's purpose is.

 

[Janger]

Ah good question gentlemen.

why and project
https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/threads/mill-riser-idea.767/#post-7256

Another why related post
https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/threads/rotary-table-for-craftex-cx605.1140/post-11334

 

[Janger]

Probably the table goes that high to accommodate milling things that hang over the back of the table when using the horizontal spindle. That's a really cool mill. Do you have tooling to use the horizontal spindle?

Hang over the back of the table ??? When horizontal milling... hmmm I don’t get it. Ducdon please explain more. ?

I have some horizontal arbors but no tooling. I did buy a R8 chuck and did some Cnc lathe turning in the horizontal mill mode as more of a experiment than practical purpose. The travel is backwards compared to a lathe. Hardly any travel on Y and too much on X. There’s a post in the Cnc area on it.

 

[ducdon]

If you were to mount something in the horizontal spindle like a large face mill or fly cutter and a irregular work piece on the table so that some portion of it hangs over the back and below the surface of the table you would have enough table travel for the cutter to get a full sweep. I've only used a horizontal mill a couple of times but I can sure see oportunities when it would be very handy.

 

[Janger]

If you were to mount something in the horizontal spindle like a large face mill or fly cutter and a irregular work piece on the table so that some portion of it hangs over the back and below the surface of the table you would have enough table travel for the cutter to get a full sweep. I've only used a horizontal mill a couple of times but I can sure see oportunities when it would be very handy.

Ducdon I see what you are saying now thanks that makes sense. But... if you go look at the picture in post #19 you can see the horizontal spindle is 3 or 4 inches lower than the top of the table. So on this mill anyway I think there might be some other reason. @Alexander did this ever make sense to you (I bought the mill from Alex)?

 

[PeterT]

Re table height & movement on combo mills, interesting question. No experience with them but I suspect the table must be able to rise somewhat close to the horizontal output center line. But even so, assuming the smallest cutter heads you would likely have mounted on the shaft + vise + work etc. I cant think of a good reason why it would need to be super close to center. I was told ?true? that horizontals preceeded verticals, but that may not mean much. Sometimes you see old machines that appear specialized in the modern world, but they had specific roles in production which are now done differently. Here's some machines to compare proportions. Almost looks to my eye that the spindle bottom is relatively close to the HZ output center, but more the HZ is higher than yours? The Acra has dovetails that run right to the bottom. The Accutech is interesting but I've never seen one in the flesh