Tilting table
A tilting table is very useful for certain machining operation on the mill, especially those requiring compound angle. However it is difficult to justify the high cost of a tilting table (circa £60 = 100 USD) because it only rarely used. I already had a cheap tilting vice that I had used frequently and it struck me that a simple tilting table could easily be constructed by making a tee slot table that just clamped in the tilting vice.
The table is 100 mm square. It was constructed from a 6 mm base plate to which are bolted pieces of 10 mm thick hot rolled steel. The edges of the hot rolled steel were rebated so that when the bolted to the base plate they form the tee slots. The centre piece of hot-rolled steel was 37 mm wide and the rebates were 5 mm deep and 4 mm from the edge of each piece. The tee slots are 8 mm wide at the surface and 16 mm wide at the base plate.
This shows the underside of the centre piece of hot rolled steel after rebating the edges and drilling and tapping M5 holes that line up with similar holes in the base plate.
The plates are bolted to the base plate using M5 countersunk screws at the edges. In the centre is a 12 x 25 mm steel bar. This is attached to the hot rolled plates with M5 cap head screws that are recessed in counterbores.
The 12 x 25 mm bar is used to clamp the table into the vice. It also provides lateral stiffness to the table.
The 12 x 25 mm bar is used to clamp the table into the vice. It also provides lateral stiffness to the table.
Once the assembly was completed then it was mounted in a vice on the mill table and the top surface milled away using a tungsten carbide cutter. This removes the mill scale from the steel and levels the surface.