Awesome New Mill- Is it worth it?

JetMech said:
That's cool, but I don't have that kind of luck. . .

Where is that being held?
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Rancho Cucamonga, Los Angeles area, Saturday, June 24th, 8:00-5:00. That was only a tiny portion of the raffle and door prizes being given away there. It is pretty hard not to win something, and you get a nice goody bag just for attending. This will be my third year, now attending the third annual Bash. Most fun a machinist can have with his clothes on. Oh, wait, there is also a ool there, but no skinny dipping... Stan says there is no "P" in pool... There may still be a couple openings to attend, there will be about 300 machinists there, swap meet, demonstrations, contests, vendors, about 20 YouTube machining video creators, and a great lunch is included. $30. This is at Stan's home/shop.
 
JetMech said:
Heh heh, I went over there to see the same thing. Looking hard at the PM30MV and liking it.

But really, if you're getting into 1400 lbs of bench mill, and at that point you really might as well go full knee mill.

I'm pretty satisfied the PM30MV will be a great "starter" mill for me, heh heh.
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Your comment above that the PM30MV will be a great STARTER mill is a red flag to me. If there is any concern at all, in the back of your mind that you will need to upgrade to a "full knee mill"( if there is any way to swing the additional cost financially) then do it now. Buy once and it only hurts once, buy now and then upgrade and take a hit on selling the bench mill, to me is a more expensive way to go.

What is the old saying? In for a penny in for a pound? Either way you go, you will get a fine machine, personally, I would stay away from a return/no warranty partly assembled unit. You never know what the original owner did to it ---fried the electronics comes to mind.

good luck and have fun with your new machine
 
Reeltor said:
Your comment above that the PM30MV will be a great STARTER mill is a red flag to me. If there is any concern at all, in the back of your mind that you will need to upgrade to a "full knee mill"( if there is any way to swing the additional cost financially) then do it now. Buy once and it only hurts once, buy now and then upgrade and take a hit on selling the bench mill, to me is a more expensive way to go.

What is the old saying? In for a penny in for a pound? Either way you go, you will get a fine machine, personally, I would stay away from a return/no warranty partly assembled unit. You never know what the original owner did to it ---fried the electronics comes to mind.

good luck and have fun with your new machine
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Or, simply do not buy new machines. If you are any kind of a horse trader, you can sell a used machine, that was purchased used, for at least as much as you have into it. Then an upgrade is all upgrade cost, not a loss as well as an upgrade. I refuse to take the large depreciation cost of buying new machines. Others simply do not want other people's used stuff and are willing to pay extra for it. Whatever works...
 
wrmiller said:
Naw...I may 'suggest' a 1340GT. But I will admit to being a bit biased as I do have one. And love it. :)
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I'll upgrade the lathe later, since I already have one. Don't worry, I know the value of the larger weight and size, but I will probably stick smaller than that. I've turned down a LeBlond (the one in my pic) at a very low price, because of the difficultyof moving it. Dude just kept going lower and lower, trying to get me to solve his problem of getting rid of it. . .

The PM 1340gt is really nice. . .
 
Bob Korves said:
Rancho Cucamonga, Los Angeles area, Saturday, June 24th, 8:00-5:00. That was only a tiny portion of the raffle and door prizes being given away there. It is pretty hard not to win something, and you get a nice goody bag just for attending. This will be my third year, now attending the third annual Bash. Most fun a machinist can have with his clothes on. Oh, wait, there is also a ool there, but no skinny dipping... Stan says there is no "P" in pool... There may still be a couple openings to attend, there will be about 300 machinists there, swap meet, demonstrations, contests, vendors, about 20 YouTube machining video creators, and a great lunch is included. $30. This is at Stan's home/shop.
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That sounds really awesome, and I guess I'm a little closer than the guy inthe next post, but I have the same question- when I win the mill, how do I get it home?

Just for kicks, I wonder what UPS would quote on a 600 lb box. . .
 
Reeltor said:
Your comment above that the PM30MV will be a great STARTER mill is a red flag to me. If there is any concern at all, in the back of your mind that you will need to upgrade to a "full knee mill"( if there is any way to swing the additional cost financially) then do it now. Buy once and it only hurts once, buy now and then upgrade and take a hit on selling the bench mill, to me is a more expensive way to go.

What is the old saying? In for a penny in for a pound? Either way you go, you will get a fine machine, personally, I would stay away from a return/no warranty partly assembled unit. You never know what the original owner did to it ---fried the electronics comes to mind.

good luck and have fun with your new machine
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HA! It worked, I knew that would spool someone up. . .

What you guys need to know is I started shopping last year, looking at mini-mills, and now I'm looking at the second heaviest bench mill available! (From PM)

There will always be a guy that says, the "next one up" but I've already taken that advice a few times in a row!

That bench mill is way MORE than I need. I'm a casual, lazy hobbyist so it's never going to see production work.

I do unsderstand about buying once, but it's not a great concern to me, since I do not wish to house or move a knee mill, yet. I will do so when i get a larger shop. So to have a mill now means to do this, and it's just a toy for me.

I will enjoy the thing every time I use it, thinking of the mini mill and how this is better. If I do need the capability of a knee mill, I can take that operation to work and run it on our brand new Sharp $30,000 mill at work.

And when I do finally buy that knee mill, who says I'd sell this one?


On another note, I am taking the advice here to skip the other mill, primarily due to it's gear drive but also warranty, assembly issues. It is from PM, though. . .

By the way, I'm not intersted in that mill but if anyone else is, then Matt at PM has a partially disassembled PM727M that was a return, Matt says it will work fine.

If you are intersted, call and ask about it, and he may offer youthe substantial discount he offered me. Could be areal score for the person who wants that model.
 
JetMech,
Have you searched for used machines in your area?

I searched for used machines in my area for years. They are scarce and overpriced. When you do find them, they are typically worn slap out and candidates for the furnace at the scrap fed steel mill. I finally gave up and bought new and am glad that I did. I had an older worn out machine for years and the upgrade has been fantastic.

Is Kansas City rich enough in content of used stuff to make the hunt worthwhile?
 
Bob Korves said:
Or, simply do not buy new machines. If you are any kind of a horse trader, you can sell a used machine, that was purchased used, for at least as much as you have into it. Then an upgrade is all upgrade cost, not a loss as well as an upgrade. I refuse to take the large depreciation cost of buying new machines. Others simply do not want other people's used stuff and are willing to pay extra for it. Whatever works...
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Heh heh, the old 'arn curmudgeons have already enticed me into their ranks. I shopped large table saws for a while, and was about settled on a 120v hybrid model, but guys like you convinced me the old Unisaw off Craigslist was the better saw, and cheaper. Just have to deal with 240v and the weight, which is of course an advantage once in place.

Well, after watching the list for a while, I despaired of one ever coming up. I use the Kansas City CL and it's got lots of traffic, but not like LA. Well, one finally came up and I went an hour away to see it. It was very old, but in good shape, with an 8' genuine Biesemeyer fence and huge outfeed table to suit, it had come out of a cabinet shop.

Well, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, and it was a tad above my price, so I made an offer of 75% that was rejected. I left my number, and a month later he called back, up against his deployment, no where to store it and on the way to Afghanistan. I hated that it went down like that, but on the other hand it was take my money or take nothing and abandon it, so I did him a favor really.

I took it home, wired it up, and loosely bolted the fence on, put a craptastic blade on it and made some cuts. Damn, that thing cuts better than any saw I'd ever had! Once it was bolted up and tuned, it cuts like buddah, with glue line rips. Awesome.

Serial # research indicated it was a 1938 model, nearly twice my own age! (I'm catching up to it though. . .)

So I got a great saw at a killer price and could no doubt sellit for more than I paid, so I believe youon your advice. . .

I already got the old 'arn bug.

I'll get the BP someday, when I have more room. And have the experience to evaluate one. Unlike Unisaws, those are onCL all day long.
 
Alan H said:
JetMech,
Have you searched for used machines in your area?

I searched for used machines in my area for years. They are scarce and overpriced. When you do find them, they are typically worn slap out and candidates for the furnace at the scrap fed steel mill. I finally gave up and bought new and am glad that I did. I had an older worn out machine for years and the upgrade has been fantastic.

Is Kansas City rich enough in content of used stuff to make the hunt worthwhile?
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Heh, I was going to get into this on the last post a bit, but didn't want to appear argumentative. I appreciate everything I'm hearing here, and agree with 99%.

As far as KC CL goes, it's ok. It's a big city, but not a very vital one.

My Unisaw story above is the barn find, true, but it's rare. I watched Unisaws for a while and when they (rarley) did come up, they were worn out junk at premium prices. Everything is like that, especially lathes. I basically went and looked at every Logan, SB, craftsman, that LeBlond, many others. Everyone wanted a grand for their clapped out, converted from spindle-shaft drive 40's SB or they wanted 2 grand for their clapped out, questionably repainted Logan. All of it was like that.

I ended up buying a used HF 8x16 for about half of new price, or $500, but it came with many extras such as the milling attachment (which is "desirable" but useless) BUT the dude was fire-saling stuff that didn't really belong to him so I talked him into throwing in ALL of their tooling, if I bumped it to $550.

That tooling was over $500 worth of sandvik holders and inserts. . . So for $550 I came home with well over $1500 worth of stuff, it's served me well and I'll sell that lathe, in miuch better shape, to someone for at least that much, while keeping the nicest tooling!


But man, I'm with you- looking for machines around here is crapshoot, might get lucky but it will take time, effort, and some failures to get great deals that way. If I bought an old BP I wouldn't really know what to look for. Same dude from above tried to sell me his for 5 grand. . .
 
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