What is a Jig Borer used for ?

Tank · Mar 1, 2013

Agree, this is an interesting thread. I wish I could take/post pic.s from where I work. Jigborers are a main stay in 1 off development parts and they are the only means of econmical rework we have.

When things go bad, like when a $900 pdc reamer in a HSK100 holder running in a $800K maching center all at once cuts bad on a .0004 bore in a $7000 part guess what, time to rework.

Repairs on our parts like this can be acomplished on tilting/turning jig borer tables like what were made in the past. To me accuracy discusions about jig bores are like snipers arguing about 1/64" differance at 1500 yards while the rest guys argue over an inch ay 100 yards. Most of the time that 1" at 100 yards is fine, when it's not, it's time for a MACHINIST with a jig borer.

I would expect this thread to die when jig bores do, never.

johnoder · Mar 2, 2013

Little update on my post #31 on page 2 - this other thread ties it all together - shows how nice looking steel castings come from jig bore efforts.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...castings-look-good-255315/?highlight=castings

MegaminD · Apr 11, 2013

Well, “Moore 2” does the job for me; it’s quite reliable as well.

___________________________________________________

Import from China | Buy from China

AD Design · Apr 15, 2013

Mine

This is my 4B the day I got it home last December. It spent most of it's life in a climate controlled room of a large corporation and it was cared for by a good toolmaker that followed the factory procedures. Because of the time and attention it received, it still has 80% of the factory flaking on the columns (the ways look great too). Perhaps it's "obsolete" by modern standards but I got this and a full load of tooling for nearly the cost of a clapped out Bridgeport, it was going to the scrap yard if I didn't take it. I consider myself fortunate to be the caretaker of this fine machine, can't wait to test drive it when I get shop power next month.

Tank · Apr 18, 2013

AD, NICE ride you have there. Is that machine in inches or metric? Might sound like a dumb quetion but I always wondered about the Japanese jig borers and wondered if they were in inches on this side of the pond. I have never personally seen a metric jig borer.

AD Design · Apr 24, 2013

Thanks Tank, it's a metric because it came directly from Japan to a very large Japanese auto supplier. They had a lot of machines directly from Japan that I'd never seen before, looked good too. There's a DRO (Heidenhein) that goes with this so I would expect that there's a switch for "Inch" somewhere on it. I've not driven the machine because the shop won't have full power until the end of May, I'll find out then. This may sound a bit weird but I enjoy just staring at it when I'm out in the shop doing something, it's a far nicer machine than I ever thought I'd be able to afford. It may be obsolete but it still has some useful service life left in it and I'm going to find excuses to use it. I would have posted more photos but it felt like I was bragging.

Where in Wisc. are you? I'm a former Chicago boy, that makes me a FIB, with a buddy in Mauston. I've been a guest on many occasions in your fair state. As my buddy says "Come smell our dairy-air".

Froneck · Apr 25, 2013

I have a #2 and #3 Moore Jig Bore, Love them! Turning the handles you can feel the accuracy, sooooo smooth! I have a 3 Axis .0001 DRO on my #3 and have no problem getting to .0000, much easier than .0005 on my mill (the Moore will be that accurate and the mill never) so I usually ignore the last digit .0005 on my mill but always at 4 places on the Moore!

Frank

Tank · Apr 28, 2013

AD, the English on the machine had me wondering what it was. The DRO will make it whatever you want, and it looks like a good readout at that. At one time my employer had 3 bridge type machines, 1 Houser and 2 Sips. I never did get to run them. I ran Moores and P&Ws, collum type machines. Funny thing, what ever type of machine a person ran was their favorite and they didn't care for the other type. When discussing a bore with bridge type operators I would bang my head and I couldn't see down the bore. When one of the bridge type operators would have to run a collum machine they would ask how we ever got any work done on them? Go figure... they are all good machines. Also, I don't think more pics would hurt anyones feelings that reads this post.

As to where I'm at, it's by the stateline and I work in Rockford with plenty of FIBS, not all bad people.

Froneck, your post hit home. I feel aeregant when I tell people that running a quality (name brand) mill feels like running a Harbor Freight drill press to me. I'm spoiled or ruined or whatever. The best fix I've seen for your mill DRO issue is a piece of masking tape over the tenths (or five tenths) place and just see the .001 place. It stops the bouncing and is as accurate as the machine and most work running on it will need to be and causes operatores less stress.

Gotta run, I could talk jig boreing all night.

Froneck · Apr 29, 2013

My DRO has a setting to turn off the last place .0005, So it's off! No Knee mill can get that accurate anyway! Your Lucky to get .003 on a New Bridgeport when they were made in the USA! I have a Cincinnati ToolMaster, ways still have the original scrap marks and machine is in great shape. Best I can do is .002 if I'm very careful! Forget it if the distance becomes long! Most guys think you can take any knee mill, put on a DRO and do .0005!! Never Happen!!

Frank

AD Design · May 4, 2013

Tank- I've been in that area on many an occasion, Rockford is a shell of it's former self from when I hit town in the 70's. Seems like a nice area, I just got wimpy about shoveling snow out of a 60' gravel drive twice a day. Sure would like to try out a SIP but I guess the 4B (imitator) is as close as I'll get to doing that. I've run Moore's, Atlantic, and maybe a Fosdick before for column types. Always liked the Moore's whether it was jig borer or jig grinder. This is my first bridge-type borer, not sure how/if will change my preference but I do tend to prefer what's in my hands at the time. I will say that the table on the 4B is larger than any of the Moore's that I ran. The handles are farther apart from each other but there's rapid travel capability, I'll just have to keep from banging my head into things during size check of the bore.

Froneck- Have to agree with you and Tank about using a nice piece of equipment, everything from that point on just feels a bit crude by comparison. After using a Moore for the first time, the Bridgeport felt like a graduated drill press (no offense to Bridgeport folks). The only Toolmaster I've run was just about worn out by the time I got to it, I presumed it must have been a favorite to run if it was worn that far. If you've got factory scraping then it must be a real delight to use, got photos?

bryan_machine · May 4, 2013

AD - in the "tooling" picture... What the objects with the fine knurling? Are they handles? And the objects in the lower right corner - are they some kind of collet? And yes, more pictures would be nice....

AD Design · May 4, 2013

bryan_machine said:
AD - in the "tooling" picture... What the objects with the fine knurling? Are they handles? And the objects in the lower right corner - are they some kind of collet? And yes, more pictures would be nice....

-Glad you asked, none of my freinds have culitvated a taste for good tooling. Those are boring heads, a bit different than the Criterion or Steiner types. They seem to be fairly ridgid and I'm looking forward to taking a cut with them. I didn't want to boast (bad form) but with the borer I got tooling capability to bore from 1mm up to 5 inches (IIRC). All this was set to go to the scrap yard in a week or two if I hadn't agreed to the offer I had made them 6-9 months earlier. I have more tooling than what was in the photo (ok I guess I'm bragging) I just unwrapped a few newspaper bundles to shoot because it was a week before Christmas when I got it home and I still couldn't believe I fell into this deal.

Not sure what other photos you want to see (just ask) so I included a couple of shots of the boring heads. I thought I'd heard someone state that they were Sumitomo but I can't find anything about them online so far. Anybody recognize the logo on the close shot?

Tank · May 4, 2013

We had many of this style of boring heads from Csip and Houser and they are accurate, but they move down as they move out. This made holding a depth in a dead end hole an issue. They are great for thru holes though. Of coarse you can figure out how much to back up your "Z" each time you move out for size, but most people like the heads that move out (90 deg. to the bore) only. If these were what I had I could make them for me, but it is a pain for anything but thru holes. I'm interested to see if these are exact copys and have the same movement, or if there was some improved engineering in them and the don't move at a downword angle.

Either way, you can rest assured that there have been many very accurate holes bored world wide with this style of tool.

bryan_machine · May 5, 2013

What's the taper of the spindle? Looks like some facing holder? Endmills? How workable is such a machine as a milling machine?

Froneck · May 5, 2013

I had a large Atlantic Jig Bore, Had power feed on the table, I milled Aluminum on it all the time! Had 400 Kwik Switch Taper. I had to cut 2.000" slot, ordered a reground 2" endmill from Reliable Tool on eBay (no bid, called and ordered it) didn't care what size it was ground to but needed it slightly less than 2". Nice endmill came Looked new!! Dumb me didn't measure it! Milled the slot which was roughed to probably 1 31/32. I measured the slot and it was 2.000 inches wide, perfect finish (reason for the wide mill) I then measured the endmill it was 2.000!!! They sent me a 2" endmill that had less than 2" flute length! Still have the end mill and used it many times as it always cut a perfect 2.000 in the Atlantic Jig Bore! Sold the JiG Bore when I down sized. Still have the 400 KS holders if anyone is interested! Thinking of them I'll put them up for sale! Have nothing to use them in!
I'll make photos of the Toolmaster and Moore today AD Design, post them late tonight.

Frank

AD Design · May 5, 2013

Tank- Valid point for the change in "Z" when increasing diameter on the heads, will have to check but the bits do appear to move on angle. When duplicating the machinery they may have duplicated the tooling as well so it shouldn't be a surprise that this style head was common to Sip. Wonder if the machine taper is the same? Now there's an interesting question, was it a dead knock-off down to tapers and bearing sizes or was there some "refinement" (as they seem so inclined to do on all other foreign goods/concepts). I just can't see them resisting the overwhelming urge to improve, if not innovate.

Frank- Looking forward to the photos when you have time.

bryon_machine- I had asked about the taper at purchase and the toolmaker that had run the machine said that he thought it may have been an odd taper. He probably wasn't certain because there were always a sufficient number of tool holders for the work. When everything is already there I guess knowing what it is becomes less important. I'll need to verify this just to know, included/available tooling has been a factor when purchasing machinery lately. This is especially true with collets and spindle tapers. Why do you ask about the taper? Wonder if that's been copied from Sip or is one of those fundamental design aspects that held over from other machinery they built.

AD Design · May 5, 2013

bryan_machine said:
What's the taper of the spindle? Looks like some facing holder? Endmills? How workable is such a machine as a milling machine?

-I would think that light cuts in aluminum with an endmill shouldn't be a problem, somebody once remarked that it further integrates the machining process (provided it doesn't stress the machine too much) in having less set-ups. For some workpieces I've had to leave a witness mark, others just a clean up to dimension once it's been previously roughed. I don't know how a bridge type will stand for vibration (vs. column), there's one or two shell mills w/holders that came with the machine so it's been done before. I've worked places where the Bridgeport didn't take more than a .015 DOC to avoid the wrath of the owner. So everything is sorta relative, just for me I consider it a fairly precision machine (nicest one I have anyway) so I'll try to avoid taking anything more than a witness cut with an endmill. Tank and Froneck seem to be the voice of experience with the original design so I read the words they choose with great interest. Thanks to all for contributing info and questions that lead to more info in this thread.

Tank · May 5, 2013

AD, I think your machine will take light to medium cuts in aluminum just fine without doing any damage. Like most machines it will let you know when you are asking too much of it. There are the pureists that say you shouldn't ever mill with a jig borer but it goes on every day out in the real world. I can't think of a jig borer that didn't come with end mill holders. Newer Pratt & Whitneys have power feed in the X & Y from the factory, and I'm sure some others did too.

Probably the worst milling jig borer I've seen are the Moores. If you take too much with these the whole machine wants to bounce and vibrate. They are so ridged nothing gives in them. HSS cutters often work better on these machines because they will give a little.

bryan_machine · May 5, 2013

AD - I wonder about the taper because I always wonder about interfaces like that. And since I'm of the "you can never have enough tooling" mindset, having any machine use a known taper so more tooling can be bought or at least made always looms large for me. But of course if it has so many holders that you'll never actually want another one for that machine, that makes it a moot point.

(I'm also interested in the evolution of such interfaces, and the timing. Seems things like cat-40 and hsk rule the world now, but the great number of older machines that take some other taper show that wasn't always the case.)

AD Design · May 6, 2013

Bryan- I'm in full agreement with you on this. A freind of mine has a small Linley jig bore, nice enough machine for smaller work but he only has 2 collets for it. It limited his own use and makes it less desireable to a buyer now that he wants to sell it.

I seem to have an adequate number of holders but I may well want more when I get to using the 4B, extra holders are a good thing to me too. I'm also curious if the taper was carried over from the Sip design. I'll have to drag out the books to find the taper specs and determine what it uses. I too find it a bit curious that there were so many different tapers in use at one time. The timeline in the development of said tapers would be interesting to track.

What is a Jig Borer used for ?

Cast Iron

Diamond

Plastic

Stainless

Attachments

Cast Iron

Stainless

Titanium

Cast Iron

Titanium

Stainless

Diamond

Stainless

Attachments

Cast Iron

Diamond

Titanium

Stainless

Stainless

Cast Iron

Diamond

Stainless

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