[Newbie] Advice On Brand to Purchase

[Sandia]

I think you need to determine exactly what processes you'll use to do the work and the horsepower you'll need for those processes. If you're going to be drilling large holes you need lots of horsepower to be productive. Same thing goes for driving a large tap, which I assume you'll be using considering they're pipe threads. The drill and tap manufacturers can help you determine the horsepower.

Moparfever, thanks for the advice. Actually the volume to start up is not very high and the machine shop that is currently doing the work, drills the flanges and then hand taps them while they are still on the mill. Usually 2 to 4 flanges per job. That is the primary reason for wanting to look at a mill, because of other jobs not to machine tap the flanges. Hope that sort of explains it. Thanks

 

[Sandro]

For what it's worth, I've used several Chinese made Bridgeport clones in different shops over the years and can't say that they ever performed worse than a Bridgeport. For what they cost new they aren't that bad a deal.

But I agree with Tony, if all you plan on doing is drilling and tapping a radial drill with some fixtureing will be much
faster than a mill only.

Sandro Di Filippo