At another site, someone posted the Poll, "How many people know what a milling machine is." I thought about it and said six in ten, Shockingly enough most replies are saying less than one in ten. So I thought I'd ask here. What do you think a milling machine is? It's funny because what one person thinks a Mill is, another might have an equally correct answer that is far different.
No cheating here. I didn't google it. My guess it that it is a precision machine used to fabricate or grind to make intricate tools or metal parts.
ReplyDeleteA Milling machine makes Miller's beer.
ReplyDeletethinking back to Little House on the Prairie, "Pa" worked down at the Mill, do I would go with something wood detailing related,
ReplyDeletethen again, there are wind mills,saw mills, General Mills., Heather Mills... LOL!
Not sure if they are still in business here in Racine or not, but a company named Tree Tool use to build them. They were/are top of the line milling machines.
ReplyDeleteBridgeport is a pretty common name and in the past 10 (or so) years the Japanese have been making them. To me they are a “throw away” machine. They are inexpensive and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rebuild them when they wear out. Just toss them out and buy a new one.
Same for a lot of CNC machine built by the Japs...
SER, you never said what a milling machine was and I think you know. I'm with kk's answer.
ReplyDeleteA milling machine is like a lathe on steroids. It can make a machined piece out of metal stock without using saws, breaks, and other machines that would used in the slower process. They are however very expensive.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are great. A milling machine in this context is exactly as Logjam stated. I wouldn't call it a lathe on steroids, but like a lathe it is used to machine metal, steel aluminum, brass, etc. Tree has been gone well over fifteen years now. Bridgeport castings are made in Korea now.
ReplyDeleteI think this group did so well due to Racine's manufacturing past.
I did a post yesterday and it doesn't show. Just wondering if this one will. It keeps telling me my password is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteahh.. thats why I would hear my dad talk about milling machines.. have no idea what they do but if it is what logjam says, then it makes perfect sense for my dad to talk about it.. He worked as a machinist for almost 40 years.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Gorton made some VERY popular Milling Machines. They went out of business, and SCREWED their employees out of their pensions. They were on Racine St. Across from Twin Disc. Large milling machines were quite dangerous. The entire area of the cutter was open to the operator, and some people got tangled up in the large cutters they used.
ReplyDelete????? Say what? People got tangled up? Accidents happen in machine shops, but I've never seen a mill so large it ate people. I have one in my garage. As long as I don't feed it fingers, it's just happy eating metal. Long hair and drill presses will scalp you though.
ReplyDeleteMy dad was a mechanic and I'm sure I heard mention of it. Amazing the crap that is stored somewhere in my brain.
ReplyDeleteTrouble with all that useless data hogging hard drive space in my brain- if I don't park in the same row at wal-mart every time, I can't find my car!
Beejay...what if I say my comment was a follow up to KK's...laugh'in.
ReplyDeleteIt should be mentioned there are ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ mills.
Largest one I ever saw was at Cincinnati Milacron in Worchester, Massachusetts. It was 30ft wide, 50ft long and had a 6-axis Whitnon spinal on it. They used lasers to set it up.
that is big. I saw a video of a large vertical mill that had a 60hp motor. The chips were huge and they were using coarse push brooms to clear them. The broom straws kept catching fire.
ReplyDeleteThe mill I was talking about was a Horizontal mill made by Gorton. The operator had a long sleeve shirt on, and It got caught by what was probably a 15 inch carbide cutter. He had LOTS of tearing of the skin etc., but was strong enough to rip his shirt sleeve and arm out of the machine. He lost a bit of work, but healed ok. He ended up being a firefighter in Kenosha.
ReplyDeleteDon't ask me, I run a die cutting printing press.
ReplyDelete