Wall O Text to follow
http://www.lathes.co.uk/duro/
Okay there is a tale to be told here. I'm not going to tell it all at once, not because I'm being miserly about the details but I'd rather most of this tale was about the mill instead of " I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD! "
Okay to the mill. Tony of course has the best general information on this mill. I received it with both vertical and horizontal spindles and rudimentary tooling. I had to, sniffle, store at my brother's as I try to gain the space for it here. I'm severely limited on space here and have a way to go before I can really make use of it. I don't even have electricity in the shed let alone bench space. I mean I have to have a bench before I can have bench space.
Speaking of limited space , let's talk about the usable work area. 12 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 9 1/2" under the horizontal, 8 1/2" under the vertical. Still it's a lot better than none.
So the Zed is all in the knee, no quill. It's a heavy beast for it's size at #255 w/o motor. The tapers are 2MT for both Horizontal and vertical. The horizontal has 7/8" and 1" arbors.
First Job after lubing, lapping, mapping, tramming, square , level and plumb is cutting gears.
My slots are 18 3/16" long then I look at the BS-0 index heads, then I look at my work area, then I look at the dividing head again, then I look at my minuscule work box and the Dividing head and tailstock take up 15 1/2" .
I've not given in yet. I have access to some unique alloy and steel drops from a business I used to for. There's nothing keeping me from mounting the spinner and tail to a tooling plate and bolting the whole mess to the table.
I'd like to cut the gears with the horizontal spindle and overarm. It just seems more stable than trying to do it from the vertical with single sided support.
Then there is the arbor/cutter dilemma. I have a 7/8" arbor but single 24DP 14 1/2PA cutters are close to $4o each.
I can get the entire 8 cutter set in 22mm ID for $76 and the 22mm arbor for another $100
Well, get used to these 2% solutions that are curiously associated with AVB far in excess of 7% but not necessarily so. I unscrew the feet from my 6" lathe and bolt it to the table and figure out how to index the spindle from there. At this point it's probably best that the lathe and mill don't live in the same place. For now bot the lathe and the mill are safe from this particular kluge.
Last but not least there is the stock itself. I figure that Clausing got away with Zamak change gears for decades. I've seen PLA printed gears hold up with no visible damage. Somehow I can't bring myself to make the gears out of aluminum. This leaves me with 12L14. If you've never carved on 12L14 I don't know that I can explain. If you have carved on 12L14 I don't have to explain. In case you are wondering why I plan on making a variety of pinion and spur gear stock , you'll have to wait while I re educate myself in modern CAD CAM .
Enough for now