home made 100$ micro mill

[repoman1984]

Didn't make this for gunsmithing purposes BUT... it kinda carries over to this. I needed a small portable mill for light purposes brass/aluminum 3/16" cuts or less mostly for my trade making keys for high security cars. This is more an experiment than a project but figured I'd share and see if CG aprooves.





shop fox cross slide 50$ shipped





dremel drill press rig 40$ shipped


I got the items found the vise to be junky but workable, the drill press rig was solid but the rail for the dremel was wobbly beyond use so had to make my own rig UGH...



I bolted the vise to the table of the drill rig


a peice of 1-1/4" pipe becomes the mounting for the dremel tool, sharp threads removed, 2 nuts welded for the set screws.





1 3/4" nut is naturally snug around the dremel "neck" that is already threaded from the factory, I welded that to 3/4" square channel tube and another one just for support




The drill bit is just for show as this "mill" is only for side to side cuts but would work very well for small layout work like scratching strait lines to mark for cuts.

[stphnman20]

Nice job! I've read other people doing the same.

[ar15barrels]

Where is the Z Axis feed?

[Swagman00]

Anybody else thinkin of 1911 frame rails?

[geedavell]

Now mount a couple mag bases on there to hold some travel indicators and your all set

[bohoki]

Where is the Z Axis feed?

i use a scissors jack from my trunk but i guess he just loosens his bent carriage bolts

[repoman1984]

no Z axis (for now), not designed for plunge milling only side milling @.035" deep or so brass/aluminum. As for measuring I might bolt some harbor freight brand digital calipers for the axis readout. This is only designed for light cuts in soft materials such as:

[geedavell]

Every machinist has these in his box

[FireArms101]

Good work!

[repoman1984]

added a fancy schmancy digital read out system er... harbor freight digital calipers, on sale! 14.99 each!

A trip to home depot for some misc hardware washers/bolts/ 8-32 tap to quick and dirty bolt the calipers to the ways of the vise. People were staring at me in the home depot parking lot wondering what the heck I was working on the in back of my truck but I am a mad scientist at heart I suppose.

project is out of pocket so far 130$ (dremel already owned)



X-axis digital readout


y-axis digital read out


SUCCESS! small .035X.035 cut in brass using a very dull HSS 1/8 DIA cutter seems ok for the time being more testing later on with the newly installed DRO system

I'm not sure if this rig would work on steel maybe taking baby cuts like .005 at a time but it seems to do fine for brass and aluminum so far even with a very old cutter.