Time to add a mill. Knee or vertical?

Please let us know what you settle for and how you handled it. I'm in the same boat.
 
I did have help moving my big manual mill, but I could have done it by myself.

A rental place near me has a hydraulic drop bed trailer. The mill was loaded onto the trailer with a forklift, then we just dropped the trailer down and skidded it in using a come-a-long. After I got it inside I put pipes under the Bridgeport and rolled it out of the way, and then used pipes again under the big mill to get it into place. I used a pry bar to scoot the mill along. I was sore from crawling around on the floor for most of a day, but it worked out well.
 
I agree get the knee mill. It's worth more to you then the rong 45 . The knee will give you better service then the mill drills out there. Another plus is it's made in Thailand , much better then China stuff. If you get operations where you need to change tooling , the knee will go up or down and stay on zero , with many of the others will not. But it's up to you , you live with what you buy good or bad.
 
I used to buy items that I thought would be good enough but always ended up regretting it later. I no longer do that. If I don't have the money for what I want now, I save until I do. You have been given great advice by those with far more experience than I. It's up to you to decide to take it or not. You sound as if you have made up your mind on the mill/drill so I hope it works out for you. Not all full size knee mills are projects. My Index is older than me and I am sure my kids will be able to use it when they get grown. I have my doubts if that would be the case if I had purchased one of the mill/drills.
 
Silverbullet said:
I agree get the knee mill. It's worth more to you then the rong 45. The knee will give you better service then the mill drills out there. Another plus is it's made in Thailand , much better then China stuff.
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I didn't know Thailand made good mills? :p
 
I remember dad telling us sons, "You see that? (mill-drill) Don't you ever think about buying one and dragging it home! You and it won't have a home to come to if you do". Well he's dead and gone now by twenty years. But the statement kinda of stays with you. No offence over them, they have their purpose with many people out there. Especially those that don't have the space for a real Bridgeport style mill.
 
4gsr said:
I remember dad telling us sons, "You see that? (mill-drill) Don't you ever think about buying one and dragging it home! You and it won't have a home to come to if you do". Well he's dead and gone now by twenty years. But the statement kinda of stays with you. No offence over them, they have their purpose with many people out there. Especially those that don't have the space for a real Bridgeport style mill.
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Haha! I'll be sure to tell my son (if I have one) something similar, "just cause daddy had one, don't you dare think about it".

As much as I have preached about knee mills here, I don't own one but I sure wish I did. My column mill is serving me well. I don't have a shop & I don't have the room for a BP. Hopefully one day I'll figure out a way. But in the meantime, better to have the mill that I have then no mill at all.
 
Since my current milling technique involves rotary burrs, a hand drill, and an underpowered Harbor Freight bench grinder, it's hard to go backwards. I spent last night looking at a bunch of different knee mills. Again let me state that I am not looking at a round column mill/drill, nor am I looking at that specific Grizzly knee mill. I am looking at a NOS knee mill that is very close in size, maybe identical, to that Grizzly. What I found that blipped the ironic meter was this knee mill has the best spindle to table clearance of all. The work I have is 14" tall. Add tool changing room, and the 16 and 17 inch mills, some costing 4x as much, are going to be tight. This one is 20.

Also remember that weight is an issue. So is space. Any mill is going to encroach on my lift bay. This is only a 20x25 shop that is to hold two cars and a lift. The SB lathe got most of the spare room.

One of the attractions of that NOS machine is it comes with a box full of cutting tools, collets, and assorted support fixtures. Like the machine itself, they are 15 years old but have 0 hours on them.

Anyway, my final question. The machine does not appear to have reverse. How important is that? I was taught that you NEVER reverse a cutting bit or reamer in the bore And power tapping scares me... we would use the mill to start the tap straight, but only a few threads. We would then finish tapping and extracting by hand. So am I missing something, or is reverse not all that critcal?
 
Do you need reverse to do what you need? Now most motors are made to be reversible in this type of applications. The switch and wire to motor may need to be changed to make it reverse. I have an enco I bought that's set up that way . But ill be setting it up with a new switch and wireing . I haven't even been well enough to even look at it . Does the mill look like this one.

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