MachinistBlog.com » Mini-Mill Mods

Dial Indicator Helps Set Z-axis Height

Rob — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:36:24 +0000

I bought an old Federal dial indicator from a retired machinist that had a big flat donut-shaped magnet glued on its back. I almost passed it up because it was kind of ugly, but it has turned out to be one of the most useful tools in my workshop. It is particularly useful

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How-to: Remove the intermediate gear from a mini-mill

Rob — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:30:45 +0000

This photo essay will show you how to remove the intermediate gear and shift lever from the head of a Sieg Industries X2 mini-mill [HF 44991, Grizzly G8689, Micro-Mark & others]. It also explains why you might want to do so after installing a belt-drive. You may also find it useful if

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How-to: Install a belt-drive on a mini-mill

Rob — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:51:53 +0000

I wanted to move the belt drive from my old mill to my new CNC mini-mill. Well, the spindle nut didn’t want to come off, which didn’t make sense because I didn’t have any problems putting it on six months earlier. I went looking for pictures and advice on the

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Inexpensive DIY tachometer for a mill or lathe

Rob — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:25:03 +0000

It looks like Adam mounted the sensor in the spindle cap and is using putty to hold the magnet on the spindle. I would have done it a little differently.

Here’s an idea I haven’t seen before. Adam made a very inexpensive tachometer for his variable speed X2 mini-mill using a cyclometer (bicycle

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X2 Mini-Mill Mod Reduces Column Flex

Rob — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:35:04 +0000

There’s an excellent thread over on the Home Model Engine Machinist forum that describes a modification for reducing the X2 mini-mill’s notorious column flex. It looks like it would be fairly simple to do. The hardest part might be cutting a 1-inch thick steel plate to the proper size (or paying to have someone

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Mini-Mill Spindle/Column Alignment

Rob — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:16:07 +0000

This tutorial was written by Earl Hackett, who graciously gave me permission to republish it here. Earl found that even though his mini-mill was trammed correctly, different length drill bits were not hitting the same spot on the work piece. He found that the spindle was slightly

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