I have just about the tiniest milling machine you can find that will (if you ask nicely) cut the more tractable varieties of steel (slowly). It’s not my first choice, but it was definitely the only one that would fit on my bench: from the benchtop to the roof is 33", and almost all bench-top mills are 36"-39". I do see a more powerful one that claims to be 29", but I haven’t yet exhausted this one, and now I also have access to the grown-up machine tools at the makerspace. I have quite a lot of tooling for it, but a lot of it will transfer to a next mill. And the tooling for the next mill will be much more common.
The next mill is not really on the horizon, budget-wise, but how much do I want to sink into this micro-mill that is discontinued? How can I make it usable for me and my brain, in the most economical way?
Machining is fascinating in its unending yak shaving, constantly executing projects for the machines themselves, which compete with actually making something you wanted to make. After many iterations and failures, I finally made a coupler so I can power the mill head up and down, instead of using the handwheel located behind the machine, which means it’s slightly above my head, and reaching a couple feet over the counter. I’m glad it’s done, because I’ve been avoiding using the thing, not wanting a workout cranking the head just to change tools.
Occasionally I remember that this may have started out with a desire to make some finished products! A mute for 5-string violins, for example. And…probably other stuff. I have a list someplace.
One quirk of working with metal is that you also end up woodworking, because we don’t usually want all-metal handles or storage or whatever. So I’ve been making a couple very large wooden drawers to get the shop the sort of tiny-home organization it needs. I’ve never built any kind of box before, but I designed something that’s definitely Good Enough™. I discovered giant drawers aren’t actually the right solution, but I already cut the parts for the second one, and I’m already annoyed at how much time it’s taking, so for the moment I have giant drawers. Which is fine. I put things in them and *poof* they don’t get brass chips on them. (Brass is easy to work, but makes tiny chips that fly some distance if not controlled.)
I do like learning things.
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