bnoon

Does anyone make or stock parts to put end mills into a drill press chuck? Or perhaps a new head with the proper taper to hold end mill bits/etc directly? I've found several milling type tables/vices for drill presses, but nothing to hold the milling bits... I've been searching tool sites all day...

Rage13

you could try looking here. www.use-enco.com

ede

other than chucking up on a mill cutter it'd be damn hard to make a drill press accept an R8 collet. that and making a moveable table would be a bit of a trick. if it can be done i'd sure like to see plans for it.

bnoon

Yeah, that tends to be my problem... the collets all seem to be tapered in such a way that the chuck would have a hard time centering it properly.

There are moving vices that are made already that could just simply bolt the base to the press table... That's the easy part...

I know the work wouldn't be as precision as on an actual lathe or milling machine, but it would be close enough to make my own spacers for the hobby work I do around the garage... Heck, the way I've done home turned bushings in the past was with a drill clamped into a vice, using Emory strips, LOL!

ede

the R8 collets take a draw bolt down through the spindel, there is another kind of collet i've not seen or used. my mill in my lab at work is for R8 collets.

bnoon

Would you have any pics of an R8 collet? Everything on the web I have found is either a "general" collet type drawing/picture all showing a tapered shank, or some other type of collet all together that's not even close to what would work in a drill press.

Of course, searching the tool sites, half of my problem is that I lack the industry terminology to know what to search the sites for...

jwscab

I dunno where I got them, but I have a bunch of small end mills and cutters that are all straight shank, coupled with a cross-slide vice, I can get away using the press as a milling machine for small stuff, the mills are about 1/2" wide or smaller. Did you try Mcmaster-Carr or MSC-Direct? I've seen a bunch of stuff on MSCdirect that may work for you. Try the double-end mills, they'll have a mill on both ends, straight shank with a machined flat, I dunno what collet they are supposed to fit, but they work well for me.

bnoon

Yeah, I have a couple of the end mills. I want to do larger work though, like the boring bits that are adjustable to make different sized bores through stock. End mills won't do that... they only make the drill press into a large metal cutting etch-a-scetch! LOL!

ede

you can look in catalogs fro R8 collet but i doubt you can really tell much. basically it's tapered with a key way and a tapped hole i nthe top end. draw bolt goes thru the spindel and tightens the collet up into the spindel and around the cutter. i have a 1" and 1.125" R8 collets in my lab that are semi external. still fit the taper but the 1" and larger cutters are too big to fit inside the spindel so only the taper goes in the spindel still you'd need the female taper to make it work. with a 5/8" drill chuck you can run some pretty good sized end mills and you can get larger cuttes with reduced shanks.