Another New Member 05/27/2017

Hey there,
I am new to the hobby. A car nut that has been an industrial mechanic / material handler who found my career in the Electrical Transmission Utility Business. I've always admired machinists & tool makers! Now with a year or so using a bench top lathe / mill combo from Grizzly, I have stepped up to a real mill. Still sorting out the mill to get it just right for any & all needs. Taxing the little Grizzly hard to make parts for the new mill.
1st pic is my G0773 from Grizzly. Great for small parts, but I need something with more than a 550 pound anchor weight to make some of the tooling needed to make tooling to make parts. So, 2nd pic is my Van Norman no24MLA Horizontal / Vertical mill as it is being shoved into my garage on 1.5" bar stock. At 4300 pounds, the forklift required to get it off the truck would not fit in the garage, so I used a 2 x 6 to help shove it home on the rollers. Might would have rolled by hand - but hot-rolled steel isn't really round DOH.

What brought me here? I just won off eBay a B&S no2 Dividing Head. It is certain to be another project with more tools & parts to build. I spotted a series of Ford "How To" class books here & became interested. I am a member of a few other sites & recognize here some of the same members. I'm so new to all this though. I look forward to adding content & might even have a few answers along the way as well.

Welcome to HM, Brockwood!

That Van Norman looks like a nice machine in the pic. How about a few more pics of it when you get a chance? Oh, and watch out. If you moved from that size lathe to that size mill, you might have trouble moving your incrementally larger and eventually 'required' surface grinder addition into your space. Welcome to the fold...

You'll find a home here. Your lathe and its' surroundings would look right at home in many of our shops. Your Van Norman is envied.

Nice Van Norman mill you have there. Looks to be in very nice shape. Welcome aboard!

Welcome to the site. Looks nice. And you should fit in with a lot of the rest of us. Working on what you can with what you what you have.

Hi and welcome , YUPP your in . I too am lusting for a van Norman.

I really like posts like this. It allows me to show the wife how reasonable and restrained my 2000 and 2500 lb machines actually are.

Thank you all for welcoming me!
As requested by Bob, more pics of the Van Norman. 1st 4 pics were sent at my request from the seller as the eBay pics just didn't show what I wanted to see. I requested a video of it cutting steel so I could hear it under load. They could only send a video of it running. Bearings sound good & all feeds & traverses work! I'm taking my time getting it set up to my liking. Last pic is in my garage with the horizontal setup in place.

Nice!