Manual Mill

Before we were let out on the floor to use the manual mill we watched a few videos to learn the basics. Some of the things we learned was the different types of mills (like an end mill, face mill) and what an indicator is and how to use it. We watched a few safety videos to make sure that we didn't get hurt while working on the mill. Before we were to go onto the floor we had a operation plan of first squaring the vise, facing the top and bottom of the block with a face mill, then we would use an end mill to square the sides to the first two surfaces we cut.  

Milling Challenge 

I learned how to use three different mills to square the vise and to square a block of metal. First there's the chuck which holds the indicator. The indicator is used to see how square the vise is, by using the mill to swipe the indicator across the jaws of the vise. Now if the vise isn't square across the whole jaw then you adjust the vise until that side is now zeroed, then rinse and repeat till the vise is completely squared.  

Next is the face mill, this mill is used to evenly take off thin layers of material off the top of the block. I used this mill to first make two sides of the material flat and even, then I measured them and slowly took more and more off the block till it was only a few thousandths from the  target mark. Did this for the top and bottom sides of the block. Im-between cuts I measured the block with calipers to see how much we took off. 

Lastly, the end mill. The way to use this mill is instead of cutting off from the top you cut from the side, and the way I used it was I cut around 10 thou from both sides. After I then measure the sides to check and see how close they were to the target length, and then I would continue to take away from the block until it gets to the target mark. I only used this for the two last sides of the block. In-between cuts I measured with calipers so we didn't cut off to much.