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1/4 of the way to a mill
- Thread starter DavidR8
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- Feb 2, 2017
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David,
Good luck. I started looking for a drill press and ended up with an Enco 8x35, so I know how these things can go. That being said I love the 8x35--small enough to be mobile, but stout enough to do nice work.
Before I found the 8x35 locally, I'd narrowed it down to PM's machines, either the 833T or their 835. At the end of the day, the 835 doesn't take up much more space than a decent sized bench mill.
Evan
Good luck. I started looking for a drill press and ended up with an Enco 8x35, so I know how these things can go. That being said I love the 8x35--small enough to be mobile, but stout enough to do nice work.
Before I found the 8x35 locally, I'd narrowed it down to PM's machines, either the 833T or their 835. At the end of the day, the 835 doesn't take up much more space than a decent sized bench mill.
Evan
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Yep. Mine didn't have power feed, but I have one to put on when I get around to it. It did have 2-axis DRO and a VFD, though.
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I do not have a DRO and so far have not felt the need to get one. I keep track of things by making notes of the position of the quill and then figure out how far I need to move the table. On my mill/drill one full turn of both the X and Y handles is 0.125." That gets confusing if I don't keep track of things. Kind of old school you might say. Works for me.
The above video is not the one I remember watching. Has the same info on bringing the head back into alignment. Did you notice how far beneath the quill his chuck was? He lost a good 3 inches with that chuck. One of the reasons I went with the ER32 was how close it was to the quill.
The above video is not the one I remember watching. Has the same info on bringing the head back into alignment. Did you notice how far beneath the quill his chuck was? He lost a good 3 inches with that chuck. One of the reasons I went with the ER32 was how close it was to the quill.
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- Nov 14, 2016
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There are knee mills of roughly the footprint of the two you linked to. Old American mills you have the Clausing 8520 / 8530 (and Johansen mills which the Clausing was based on), Rockwell 21-100 and midway between these and a Bridgeport are the Millrite mills. There are quite a few others in this size but very small numbers and I can't keep track of them.
With older imports there were quite a few made in Taiwan and China in the 80s and 90s of similar size under a slew of brand names. Some like Evan's Enco look liked scaled down Bridgeports, others are close copies of the Clausing and Rockwell mills.
There are several current import small knee mills sold by Grizzly and others, so I'm sure one of the Canadian importers probably has something similar. They are much larger than a mini-mill but much smaller than they look in photos.
Harbor Freight 6x26
Grizzly 6x26
Grizzly 8x30
Grizzly a different 8x30
In regards to space, unlike a lathe which is pretty well self contained within its footprint with most controls at the front, you need to leave some working room around a mill to allow for table travel and ability to get at things like belts, head adjustment and hand wheels.
Taking my Clausing as an example, it is a 6x24" mill, which is pretty small for a knee mill. With a 24" table you would think you just need a space just a little more than 2 feet wide for it, but in actually it needs about 4 feet, 16" for travel side to side (8" to either side) plus enough room to operate the hand wheels at each end. It also needs about 4 feet front to back as well to account for the depth of the machine and to allow the head to be adjusted in and out.
Actual floor space required is only about 18x24 inches though, most of the extra room being at the table height and higher so you can have some stuff around the base. I have shelving behind my mill for metal storage because there is a lot of space behind the mill below the level of the head.
I don't have much room, so I actually have to move the table to one side or the other to access the sides or back of the mill, but this is also a consideration. The table moves, so you can get creative in placement to use your space with maximum efficiency.
A bench mill will be both similar and different from a knee mill in space needs. Being bench mounted you have more control over height, and of course you can have all kinds of storage below the mill.
Height is a space issue I think many overlook. An 8 foot ceiling will work for most but with heights of 7-8 feet for many Bridgeport styled mills, anything less than 8 feet (as you may find in a basement shop) can result in a severe restriction of options.
With older imports there were quite a few made in Taiwan and China in the 80s and 90s of similar size under a slew of brand names. Some like Evan's Enco look liked scaled down Bridgeports, others are close copies of the Clausing and Rockwell mills.
There are several current import small knee mills sold by Grizzly and others, so I'm sure one of the Canadian importers probably has something similar. They are much larger than a mini-mill but much smaller than they look in photos.
Harbor Freight 6x26
Grizzly 6x26
Grizzly 8x30
Grizzly a different 8x30
In regards to space, unlike a lathe which is pretty well self contained within its footprint with most controls at the front, you need to leave some working room around a mill to allow for table travel and ability to get at things like belts, head adjustment and hand wheels.
Taking my Clausing as an example, it is a 6x24" mill, which is pretty small for a knee mill. With a 24" table you would think you just need a space just a little more than 2 feet wide for it, but in actually it needs about 4 feet, 16" for travel side to side (8" to either side) plus enough room to operate the hand wheels at each end. It also needs about 4 feet front to back as well to account for the depth of the machine and to allow the head to be adjusted in and out.
Actual floor space required is only about 18x24 inches though, most of the extra room being at the table height and higher so you can have some stuff around the base. I have shelving behind my mill for metal storage because there is a lot of space behind the mill below the level of the head.
I don't have much room, so I actually have to move the table to one side or the other to access the sides or back of the mill, but this is also a consideration. The table moves, so you can get creative in placement to use your space with maximum efficiency.
A bench mill will be both similar and different from a knee mill in space needs. Being bench mounted you have more control over height, and of course you can have all kinds of storage below the mill.
Height is a space issue I think many overlook. An 8 foot ceiling will work for most but with heights of 7-8 feet for many Bridgeport styled mills, anything less than 8 feet (as you may find in a basement shop) can result in a severe restriction of options.
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- Oct 16, 2019
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- 6,887
I have a Used.com alert setup for "Mill" and tonight this showed up:
Craftex CX603 Knee Mill
www.usedvictoria.com
This is the retail ad
www.busybeetools.com
Gives you a flavour of my market <eyeroll/>
Craftex CX603 Knee Mill
Used.ca in Victoria Area | Classifieds for Jobs, Rentals, Cars, Furniture and Free Stuff
Buy & sell your used stuff for free in undefined. Your local, family-friendly online classifieds site for cars, furniture, jobs, real estate & more
www.usedvictoria.com
Buy Knee Mill Vertical Craftex Cx Series at Busy Bee Tools
This heavy duty knee mill has the power and space to make quick and accurate work of just about any machining job you can throw at it.
www.busybeetools.com
Gives you a flavour of my market <eyeroll/>
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2016
- Messages
- 3,297
I have a Used.com alert setup for "Mill" and tonight this showed up:
Craftex CX603 Knee Mill
This is the retail adUsed.ca in Victoria Area | Classifieds for Jobs, Rentals, Cars, Furniture and Free Stuff
Buy & sell your used stuff for free in undefined. Your local, family-friendly online classifieds site for cars, furniture, jobs, real estate & more
Buy Knee Mill Vertical Craftex Cx Series at Busy Bee Tools
This heavy duty knee mill has the power and space to make quick and accurate work of just about any machining job you can throw at it.
Gives you a flavour of my market <eyeroll/>
That is a pretty sparse ad and not much savings for being used (about 20% off).
It could still be worthwhile. It doesn't look like these come with any tooling new, so if the used mill just comes with a vise, set of collets and some misc end mills then the used price looks a lot better. The bare minimum someone would have had to buy to run it.
A decent 4-6" milling vise alone can easily run $300+ (US$ to early in the morning for me to convert currency
). If it really comes with nothing, then I guess you are just getting the scratch and dent price. I wonder if this could be a retailer selling a floor display or something.