Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.23. This milling machine has a dovetail column.
The knee
Not every milling machine has a knee. Most turret mills will have one. The
knee is a large casting that slides up and down the dovetailed column. The
machine table is mounted on top of the knee. The knee can be wound up
and down independently of the milling machine's head to set the Z depth. If
you wish, you can fit a digital readout to the knee as well as to the spindle
down-feed to measure the Z travel. Power feeds are also available to fit some
milling machine knees. Power feeds certainly ease the back-breaking winding
up and down of the heavy knee and can also be used for drilling and boring.
