Tooling Plate for BF30 Milling Machine

Just thought I'd post some pictures of the tooling plate I made today for my BF30 mill.

Its made from a piece of 450mm x 250mm x 25mm tooling plate aluminium sourced locally from Durbin Metals, Bristol - these guys are really friendly and could be a good source of materials (I am not associated with this company).

It has alternate M10 reamed holes and M10 thread holes on an 25mm pitch. The M10 threaded holes are also counter bored to allow them to take threaded tooling pins. I bought some hardened M10 tooling pins on ebay and these are a nice tight push fit in to the reamed holes.

All machining was lubricated using parafin rather than WD40 - cheaper for me.

I cut bolt holes to meet up with the T slots on the mill table, the middle holes at either end are reamed M10 to accept locating stubs that will be machined to be a close sliding it with the M12 mill T slots.

All up, it took around 2.5 hrs to make and should be really useful.

I used the tapping feature on the BF30 mill - once set up this works really well when using a spiral point tap.

Looks very nice.
Thanks for the tip on that supplier, never heard of them but they are only 15 minutes from my house!

Yes their website looks like they only supply large quantities but a telecon revealed that they will supply small lengths of material. Guy on the phone was very helpful.

That looks really good!

Are you going to add alignment dowels to your table, or do you plan to just align it once and leave it on there?

Hi,
I know this was posted some time back, but are you able to give a quick tutorial on how to (and how not to) use the tapping feature on the BF30?
Would really appreciate this...
Thanks !

Sure, first off with large taps you really need a dedicated tapping chuck. Set the machine in to tapping mode, select low gear and slowest spindle speed. Experiment in free air with the quill down feed and different settings on the depth stop. The depth stop has sensors in it for spindle start and reverse. With a bit of fiddling you can set it to start just above the workpiece and reverse as the tap exists. I wouldn't trust it for blind holes!
Clean and lube the tape between hole - I also use spiral point tapes for machine work.

Thank you !
So a tapping collet will not replace a dedicated tapping chuck?
Thank you again!

It should be OK as long as it can drive the square section of the tap. A normal collet will slip as the tap gets larger and material gets stronger I.e. M10 in mild steel needs a very positive drive.

Agree, Thank you!