Mill-ionaire

vertical knee mill, simulated

what this is

This is a simulated vertical knee mill, the kind of manual machine a Bridgeport is. The tall green casting is the column, the arm across the top is the ram, and the head hanging off it holds the spinning cutter. The work sits on the table, and on a machine like this the cutter stays put while the table carries the work to it.

X traverses the table left and right, Y moves the saddle in and out, Z raises and lowers the whole knee so the work comes up to the cutter. A tilts the head over for angled work. The big view is a cutaway taken straight through the part at whatever Y the saddle is sitting at, so you see the real section of what you have cut. The panel on the right is the same part seen from above.

The part is solid material, not a surface, so you can machine one face, unclamp it, turn it ninety degrees and machine another. Cut past the bottom of the work and you start eating the table, which does permanent damage, and if you cut right through you part the leadscrew and that axis is finished until the millwright rebuilds it.

The print panel gives you jobs to make. Demo mode in the menu runs the machine on its own, cutting the alphabet one letter at a time, and finished letters go into the inventory bins.

machine, cutaway at the saddle plane
X
Y
Z
A
pick a job from the print, then drag a blank onto the table
machine condition
100
axis controls
jog step
X, table
Y, saddle
Z, knee
spindle rpm
0
cutter in the spindle
cutter
power feed
power feed 12
head tilt and re-fixturing
A, head tilt
re-fixture
the part
print and job list

finished parts and inventory

Loose parts pile up in the tray at the top. Drag one down onto its matching letter bin to stow it. Each bin holds a hundred, and a part will not go into the wrong letter.

stock, top view

Power feed drives the table on its own at the set rate, the way the longitudinal feed box does on a real Bridgeport. Flip the switch on, pick a direction, and the table traverses until you shut it off or it runs out of travel, which is how you get an even finish across a face instead of the wobble you get cranking by hand. It respects the same crash rules, so with the spindle stopped it stops dead against the part instead of driving through it.