Got a chance to buy a Bridgeport vertical mill. J head, 1 HP, 3 phase. Belt Drive, not variable speed drive. Not run in a while, but has been in storage and in dry. Seems good condition, X and Y tight, power feed missing, no digital stuff, all manual. Can't run it where it sits. I have phase converter on my lathe I can easliy hook up. No tooling, but he said he would give me some end mills with it, I have a few already, he has LOTS of mill tooling to sell, new and used. He wants $2000 for it, may can get it a little less. Looks good, just dirty. I plan to take my machine shop friend over to look at it next week. Worth the money? I am in Tennessee, a machine tool desert.
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Thinking about Buying a Bridgeport Mill
- Thread starter CJ5Dave
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2018
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- 1,156
$2000 sounds like a great deal to me if the mill is in good shape. There are several good guides to checking out a used mill before buying it available on the internet. Most of the procedures do not need power to the mill to perform. Mainly looking for ware on the way and such. Pretty easy stuff like tightening the way locks slightly and see if it takes more force to move the table at the ends of the range than the center (which would indicate uneven wear in the center of the ways). Etc.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2021
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Even without power, you can check a few things. You can check for wear in the spindle drive by holding the drive pulley and twisting the spindle back and forth to check for excessive backlash and noise. Do this in both direct drive and back gear positions. It can have a little backlash, but shouldn't have a lot. If the mill has been sitting for a while, the oil in the spindle bearings can get dry and sticky. Be gentle about turning the spindle and put some fresh oil in the oil cups. Slowly work that oil around as the bearing get easier to turn. If the spindle is stiff/sticky (but not jerky or rough), it can be a good bargaining point.
Engage the spindle feed and rotate the drive pulley. You should see the hand feed handwheel move. Also see if the drive disengages when the stop nut hits the lever.
Does it have a single-point oiler? If not, have they been putting grease in the zerk fittings? Grease is very bad for the ways, and most people don't know the zerks are there for using way oil from a hand pump. It is a pretty big job to get the grease out of the passages so oil can flow properly.
If he has lots of tooling for sale, twist his arm for collets, arbors, and any accessories, like angle plates or v-blocks. Don't worry about hold-downs or 1-2-3 blocks that can be bought at reasonable prices. The biggest end mill you will want to use on steel will be 3/4", and don't expect to run a bigger face mill or fly cutter taking very heavy cuts. Really big cutters will be a waste of money unless you are working with plastic.
Engage the spindle feed and rotate the drive pulley. You should see the hand feed handwheel move. Also see if the drive disengages when the stop nut hits the lever.
Does it have a single-point oiler? If not, have they been putting grease in the zerk fittings? Grease is very bad for the ways, and most people don't know the zerks are there for using way oil from a hand pump. It is a pretty big job to get the grease out of the passages so oil can flow properly.
If he has lots of tooling for sale, twist his arm for collets, arbors, and any accessories, like angle plates or v-blocks. Don't worry about hold-downs or 1-2-3 blocks that can be bought at reasonable prices. The biggest end mill you will want to use on steel will be 3/4", and don't expect to run a bigger face mill or fly cutter taking very heavy cuts. Really big cutters will be a waste of money unless you are working with plastic.
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- Apr 30, 2015
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Sounds great- I like the belt drive ones
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- Jan 31, 2016
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- 11,454
Me too !
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2016
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- 11,454
Lot of power feed units out there that will work .
Dave,
When I go looking at equipment I throw my gas generator that has 220 3PH in the back of my truck ,works well when there's no power around.
If they make excuses for ways to not use the generator I leave.
and on a sidenote, if there's lots of backlash in the screws, no worry, longitudinal and cross feed nuts are easy and cheap to replace.
When I go looking at equipment I throw my gas generator that has 220 3PH in the back of my truck ,works well when there's no power around.
If they make excuses for ways to not use the generator I leave.
and on a sidenote, if there's lots of backlash in the screws, no worry, longitudinal and cross feed nuts are easy and cheap to replace.