# Any Experiance/Opinions on RoundTower mill?



## invisabledog (Dec 9, 2014)

Just picked this up the other day and wondered if anyone has any experiance with Roundtower mills?  It's a BP clone and from what little I know, parts will interchange.  Will power it up for the first time, today, with a vfd I just got.  It appears to be in great shape.  All the scraping marks are visable on all the ways and not a single mark or ding on the table.  Came with the 2 vises and rotary table shown, plus some collets and very little tooling.  Has power feed on x and y axis.  Unfortunatly no DRO.  The guy I bought it from was the brother of the original owner, who recently passed.  Cool part is they were top fuel racers back in the 80's.  Used this mill to build engines and notch tubing for their car.  The owner delivered it to me, from NYC,  for under 3k.  Bonus was I got to spend a couple hours with a guy who used to race top fuel.  Some cool stories.  That was worth the price.  Has anyone used one of these?  Have one?  Was told that this company used to make aftermarket BP parts and decided to make and market their own mill.  Anyone know if this is true?  Thanks in advance.


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## LEEQ (Dec 18, 2014)

I never saw one, but for a lightly used machine delivered, I'll say you did well!


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## Rbeckett (Dec 18, 2014)

I have a round column mill/lathe and the only issue I have had is maintaining its location relative to the table.  If I found an RF 30 or larger I might still even consider getting it if I was in the market for another machine. Hope this helps.

Bob


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## Pontiac Freak (Dec 18, 2014)

I had a RoundTower for my first machine.  It was a good machine!


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## darkzero (Dec 18, 2014)

I've never heard of the brand RoundTower but then again I haven't been around for that long. Did some searching & it looks like they are no longer made. Seems to be an Asian BP clone where some say the COO is China or Taiwan. There are lots of BP clone variations, not all interchange with genuine BP parts that I have seen. Looks like you got a good score.


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## invisabledog (Dec 19, 2014)

Tag on the machine states Tiawan as COO.  What little info I've found says some parts are interchangeable with bp.  Hope i never have to find out.


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## HMF (Feb 26, 2015)

invisabledog said:


> Just picked this up the other day and wondered if anyone has any experiance with Roundtower mills?  It's a BP clone and from what little I know, parts will interchange.  Will power it up for the first time, today, with a vfd I just got.  It appears to be in great shape.  All the scraping marks are visable on all the ways and not a single mark or ding on the table.  Came with the 2 vises and rotary table shown, plus some collets and very little tooling.  Has power feed on x and y axis.  Unfortunatly no DRO.  The guy I bought it from was the brother of the original owner, who recently passed.  Cool part is they were top fuel racers back in the 80's.  Used this mill to build engines and notch tubing for their car.  The owner delivered it to me, from NYC,  for under 3k.  Bonus was I got to spend a couple hours with a guy who used to race top fuel.  Some cool stories.  That was worth the price.  Has anyone used one of these?  Have one?  Was told that this company used to make aftermarket BP parts and decided to make and market their own mill.  Anyone know if this is true?  Thanks in advance.
> 
> View attachment 89418


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