Bridgeport Vs PM 932V input

[jetlag]

The type of mill anyone buys for a home shop should be driven firstly by the types of projects you're planning on doing. On most bench mills, the 10tpi leadscrews on the x/y axis means your cranking the handwheel twice as much to relocate the table, something that isn't an issue for model engineering, but might get pretty old if you're working at the limits of the mills envelope. The Z capacity of most bench mills is pretty small, and if you mount a rotary table, and have a boring head, you might find you don't have the room for your workpiece.

If I didn't have a Bridgeport, and couldn't find one in decent condition locally, I'd probably be looking at the Harbor Freight 6x26 knee mill. You can add a riser block to the 6x26 mills, something that's not even an option for the bench mills. I've owned the RF30 mill/drill, a Millrite mvn, and now my Bridgeport J head, and I wouldn't go back to a bench mill, except as a second machine, in the same way that I've kept my Atlas 618 alongside my Cincinnati Tray Top.

 

[dabear3428]

The type of mill anyone buys for a home shop should be driven firstly by the types of projects you're planning on doing. On most bench mills, the 10tpi leadscrews on the x/y axis means your cranking the handwheel twice as much to relocate the table, something that isn't an issue for model engineering, but might get pretty old if you're working at the limits of the mills envelope. The Z capacity of most bench mills is pretty small, and if you mount a rotary table, and have a boring head, you might find you don't have the room for your workpiece.

If I didn't have a Bridgeport, and couldn't find one in decent condition locally, I'd probably be looking at the Harbor Freight 6x26 knee mill. You can add a riser block to the 6x26 mills, something that's not even an option for the bench mills. I've owned the RF30 mill/drill, a Millrite mvn, and now my Bridgeport J head, and I wouldn't go back to a bench mill, except as a second machine, in the same way that I've kept my Atlas 618 alongside my Cincinnati Tray Top.

I added about 4" to my G0758 by flipping the Z axis slide.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

The type of mill anyone buys for a home shop should be driven firstly by the types of projects you're planning on doing. On most bench mills, the 10tpi leadscrews on the x/y axis means your cranking the handwheel twice as much to relocate the table, something that isn't an issue for model engineering, but might get pretty old if you're working at the limits of the mills envelope. The Z capacity of most bench mills is pretty small, and if you mount a rotary table, and have a boring head, you might find you don't have the room for your workpiece.

If I didn't have a Bridgeport, and couldn't find one in decent condition locally, I'd probably be looking at the Harbor Freight 6x26 knee mill. You can add a riser block to the 6x26 mills, something that's not even an option for the bench mills. I've owned the RF30 mill/drill, a Millrite mvn, and now my Bridgeport J head, and I wouldn't go back to a bench mill, except as a second machine, in the same way that I've kept my Atlas 618 alongside my Cincinnati Tray Top.

Not to rain on your parade but my mill is a PM940V square column mill and at 22" max Bed clearance I suspect I have more Z axis working envelope than your Bridgeport does. Having owned a couple Bridgeport mills I can say the mill I currently have can produce comperable work in most cases with equal accuracy. I do like a knee mill but I am very happy with the mill I have.