Milling machine up and running...

Just a quick post to share a few photos of the milling machine up and running mitering tubes.

New Shop Layout. I had waited to build permanent benches and set up this corner of the workshop until I purchased the Milling Machine. New bench for the little lathe dedicated to slotting, and a new bench for the sander, grinder, buffer, and a rack on the back of the bench for storing raw straight gauge 4130.

New mitering fixtures on the Milling machine. It took a week or so of greasy, heavy work to get this machine fully operational again. I havent worked with parts this akward and heavy since my days wrenching on old tractors, bulldozers and farm equipment.

Mitering the Down Tube Head Tube miter. This fixture takes rigidity, accuracy, and speed to a whole new level. This mitering setup also allows me to miter curved main triangle tubes.

The Sputnik Tool Main Tube Mitering Fixture - a very well thought out and well made fixture - worth every penny.

Little Lathe for Slotting finally has a good home that is tucked out of the way. Room for shelves above and drawers below. Still looking for appropriate shelves and drawers at the UCSB surplus yard.

The front view of the Milling machine. There is a gap large enough between the fixtures to mount a tilting table and the custom Seat Stay mitering fixture that Jeff @ Sputnik is making for me that will allow me to miter curved seat stays like those found on the MezzaLuna Mixte.

The Sputnik Tool chain stay mitering fixture. Once it was all dialed in the first time - mitering the chain stays only took about 1 minute. A HUGE time savings over the other method of hand filing / fitting up each chain stay individually and comparing their fit until they matched one another as close to perfect as possible.

The fixture is mounted in the vise, to allow me to still be able to use the milling machine for milling drilling operations. The angle plate fits well in the jaws of the vise and requires less than 5 minutes to install / remove / re-align. 

The Static phase converter that makes the third leg of the 220 3 phase power  during startup of the milling machines 2HP motor. After the motor is running at full RPM the  Static phase converter stop making that third leg and the machine runs at 1/3 of its rated 2HP.