Production-type Milling Machines

Production-type milling machine are less versatile than the regular knee and column, horizontal or vertical milling machines. This machine has much greater rigidity, strength and power and is best when it comes to heavy milling operations. This machine is very easy to handle and requires less skills when compared to other types milling machine. The work pieces are held in fixtures and sometimes can be fitted with more than one work piece at a time. There are two types of production-type milling machines. There’s the fixed-bed machine and the rotating-table machine.
Fixed-bed Machine
On simplex machines, the table moves longitudinally. The work piece is fed by using hydraulics or run by a screw and nut arrangement. Normally, there is no provision for hand feeding the table. The position of the spindle can be adjusted vertically while the machine is being set up, after which the position of it is locked. In some machines, the spindle can be raised or dropped as the table moves. These kind of machines are used for simple profiling operations.
In a duplex machine, the table can only be moved longitudinally between the heads and spindles. The height of each head can be raised or lowered and can be fitted with a wide variety of mill cutters. These type of machine is best for facing operations.
There are also more complex triplex machines that are used to machine three surfaces at once on the part that is being moved past the cutters by the table.
Rotating-table Machine
These types of machines are usually used in factories and have one or more spindles that are of the vertical type. The work pieces are held by a lot of fixtures. The movement of the table is continuous and the main purpose of the operator is to place unmachined parts and remove machined parts. Tooth face milling types of cutters are used on these types of machines.