New NOVA Vulcan Drill Press for metal working in the works

[Michael Kellough]

Announcement

"The NOVA Vulcan is an exciting new class of machine that has all of the versatile features of a metal drilling machine but with additional capabilities of a milling machine, in one cost effective hybrid package."

This is what I needed last year. Made do milling aluminum buy adding a cross slide table.

 

[bnaboatbuilder]

Interesting change to the standard Nova drill press. My only concern is how flat, level and accurate could a generic drill press table actually be for precise milling. How could it be adjusted if not?

 

[Cheese]

Interesting...thanks for posting. [big grin]  I'll wait until it's a released item so they can get any bugs out.

I just ran across this Baileigh mill/drill/lathe the other day...pretty reasonable pricing.
https://www.baileigh.com/mill-drill-lathe-mld-1030

 

[tallgrass]

seems like a horrid idea. Maybe a good drill press, ok. But milling, no way. a shell end mill ,lol. Precision, not a chance, unless the term has been redefined. This is the kind of thing people try to a drill press who have no idea the differences between a mill and drill press. i would expect better from this company.

 

[Svar]

seems like a horrid idea. Maybe a good drill press, ok. But milling, no way. a shell end mill ,lol. Precision, not a chance, unless the term has been redefined. This is the kind of thing people try to a drill press who have no idea the differences between a mill and drill press. i would expect better from this company.

Define precision. Depends on what you are doing. Will work just fine to mill plastic or aluminum parts for home made jigs etc.

 

[Cheese]

Maybe a good drill press, ok. But milling, no way. a shell end mill ,lol. Precision, not a chance, unless the term has been redefined.

It all depends on the materials you’re using and the tolerances you expect to achieve. Will it replace a $40,000 Bridgeport Series 1 knee mill...not likely. But it may certainly open the door for the average woodworker that works with a 1/64” (.015”) tolerance to experiment with machining metals. If the advertised specs are real, I’d surmise the tool may be capable of a tolerance within .005” or less for easily machined materials...think aluminum, plastics and wood.

Copper and mild steel could also fall into that grouping if some care were exercised.

Just another option...

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=23087]bnaboatbuilder[/member]  my table was excessively concave and they sent another but I couldn't postpone work waiting for it to arrive so I put a cross slide table on the dp table and shimmed it square to the quill.

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] 1/64" was easy to attain but I was just drilling, tapping, and counterboring. Precision was limited to layout skills. Considered adding digital readout to cross slides but making clearance holes reasonably oversized was sufficient.

I only did a little bit of milling.

The problem I had is that changing tooling took time even with a good keyless chuck. I tried 2 of these and I'd have to insert and test and re-try in a slightly different rotation of the tooling to get concentricity. The speed controls of the NOVA made it easy to start/stop and change speeds (checking wobble is easier at low speed).

If I didn't get the wobble out the chuck might come loose in the quill which is more than annoying. Don't have enough experience changing chucks to know if there is an issue with the quill but if I'd had to do all that with a keyed chuck and a belted dp I couldn't have completed the project on time.

 

[Cheese]

Hey Michael...a few questions.

1. You already own one of these Vulcan drill presses/mill?

2. Doesn't your cross slide already have micrometer dials on it?

3. I'd check the OD of the 2MT and the ID of the 2MT in the quill for dirt or debris. Those chucks should seat dead on every time. The Morse Taper method has been used in machine tools for over the last 150 years.

4. For accurate layout I will make a 1:1 scale CAD drawing. I'll add very small/thin center points to those diameters I want to place accurately and then use the drawing as a pattern. I then use a very very sharp scribe to mark those center points. If you've been precise up to this point, your center to center distance will probably be in the .005" or less range. The rest is just being as accurate as you can to maintain the preciseness of the location that you've already achieved.

I've used brad point drills in aluminum to pick up those small scribe marks, that works well and there's little harm to the drill bit. Once the aluminum workpiece is firmly secured to the drill press table enlarging the holes to the proper size is easy. The fussiest part is picking up those scribe marks accurately. 

 

[greg mann]

[member=2098]Michael[/member], you should not need to seat and reseat the taper to get rid of runout. As Cheese has said the tapers need to be clean but assuming that something else must be going on. Sometimes, the tang on the male taper is too thick and can keep the taper from seating completely if it binds in its corresponding drive slot. Try putting the tool in gently until you feel resistance. At that point, if the tool is seated on the taper it should not wobble and you should be able to rotate is very slightly back and forth and feel the tang contacting the walls of the slot. if you feel no rotational play and it has wobble then the interference is on the tang and it is keeping the tapers from mating up. You can also ink up the tang and insert it a few times. It should only show marking at the outer edges and not on the flat, or the radius at the base of the tang. I have had to thin out the tang on some tools that were not machined thin enough to insert correctly. After that everything fell into place.

I would like to see a picture of the Morse Taper/ER32 comb setup. That is a new one on me.

 

[Cheese]

Good call on the tang. One of those out of sight, out of mind things.  [tongue]

 

[Tracky]

I would like to see a picture of the Morse Taper/ER32 comb setup. That is a new one on me.

Look at the 5th picture in the announcement. The inside of the spindle holds an MT3 taper and the outside of the spindle is threaded for an ER32 collet nut.

Not sure why they didn't opt to use an R8 spindle. I think it is more common in North America. Maybe because it is a drill press and not a drill/mill? At this price point, I would also look at the HD gear head drill presses, such as Grizzly G0779 - which has an R8 spindle.

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] I rushed my reply too much.

1. No I don't have one. The announcement said they're only making 20 initially and I don't expect to ever need it but I wish I had one a Vulcan a year ago.

2. Yes, the cross slides have increments but since I was making multiple parts I didn't really use the dials. I needed 9 pieces of some parts and 18 of another so I located one hole at a time and fixed a jig top run all the parts through that station. See 4.

3. Cleaned quill and taper every time. Have a feeling there might be a high spot in the female taper.

4. For locating I too use a inkjet print (laser print is distorted) of the locations taped to the master block. Used the point of my straightest transfer punch to center the hole location under the chuck. Get the transfer punch spinning at about 500 rpm and persistence of vision gives nice little circle to overlay over your mark. Looking from two directions I could get pretty close. But that's when I'd find it took several tries to get the punch to spin true. When the hole was positioned I'd try to get the drill bit true but the flutes make it hard to see so unless it was really bad I'd give it a go. Only when it started cutting did I know if it was in good enough.

The largest tool I used was a 5/8" counterbore. If it wasn't straight enough it would start to chatter and if I didn't withdraw the quill fast enough the bit could actually get wrenched crooked (and really wobble)  in the chuck. Sure would have been nice to have had a solid collet.

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=2098]Michael[/member], you should not need to seat and reseat the taper to get rid of runout. As Cheese has said the tapers need to be clean but assuming that something else must be going on. Sometimes, the tang on the male taper is too thick and can keep the taper from seating completely if it binds in its corresponding drive slot. Try putting the tool in gently until you feel resistance. At that point, if the tool is seated on the taper it should not wobble and you should be able to rotate is very slightly back and forth and feel the tang contacting the walls of the slot. if you feel no rotational play and it has wobble then the interference is on the tang and it is keeping the tapers from mating up. You can also ink up the tang and insert it a few times. It should only show marking at the outer edges and not on the flat, or the radius at the base of the tang. I have had to thin out the tang on some tools that were not machined thin enough to insert correctly. After that everything fell into place.

I would like to see a picture of the Morse Taper/ER32 comb setup. That is a new one on me.

[member=22]greg mann[/member] the tang is a little long on the Llambrich keyless chucks such that it's clearly a go/no go fit but it's possible that there was an extraneous touch occasionally. But, I could get the chuck in nicely (no runout on a piece of 1/2" precision shaft) and then not be able to get the same reading a moment later after removing and reinserting the shaft. Maybe I need an Albrecht?

You can see how they expect the tang of the chuck taper to fit in the quill. What makes me nervous about this multipurpose quill design is that there is less contact surface with the chuck's taper.

 

[Cheese]

Morse taper reamers are available.

And greg’s tang comment is a good one to check out.

 

[JeremyH.]

That's pretty rad. But the question is sort of whom needs one with it's limited use. For the right person it's probably a miracle. For many of us we'd have to figure out what we'd want it for... or invent something.

 

[tallgrass]

i have quite a machine shop with both cnc and standard machines. Yes a multi ton bed mill. i could machine the devil's ass with it. it is obvious that is not a mill. it is not just a matter off bearing and what kind of spindle it has or what taper it poses. it comes down to rigidity of the entire machine. for example look at the EMCO Colum mills, i happen to own one. it is a wonderful little machine. it is a dedicated mill. it is on the verge of not being rigid enough and is only able to take light cuts with small cutters. it is dedicated for this purpose. The drill/mill in question is not going to be as rigid as the EMCO yet is supposed to handle a more robust envelope. I do not think so. Even soft materials will be difficult. there will be surface finish issues due to the lack of stiffness in the entire system. the inability to attenuate harmonics, because of the lack of mass, will be a problem. If you look at mill / drills as a group, they will look more like mills than drills.  For a good reason. As a ME i take my hat off to people who try new and innovative solutions. However in some cases you can not fight the basic physics and engineering realities. This very well might be a great drill press.I fear,  As a mill, unless the feeds and speeds are so low as to be tedious and the materials so soft that the loads on the Column and spindle be so light as to be pointless. For the price i would suggest buying a solid drill press and column mill. it will almost the same total price. Than ,at least you have a fighting chance.

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=2242]tallgrass[/member]    "a solid drill press and column mill" both for $2000? Any specific suggestio0ns?

 

[tallgrass]

there are many choices. I would suspect a solid drill press for 500ish and mill. that way you can shift according to your needs. i quick search of grizzly tools has a selection that does not suck. we can discuss quality, but the drill press we are talking about is not a 2000 dollar drill press and sure is not a 2000 dollar mill. a Grizzly G0704 and a Grizzly G0794. just as an example. those 2 arguably  give you more than capacity. Also could be upgraded if you choose.