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Harbor Freight
- Thread starter Tonym47
- Start date
I do not have the mill, but I do have the combo machine. I like mine and have had 0 problems out of it. I did spend some time making adjustments and tuning it when I first got it, but I have made some very nice tight tolerance parts with it.
Thanks very much Tonym
I have the HF mini mill. It works great now after I have replaced the spring loaded head raising arm with a gas spring. I also replaced the plastic gear in the head with the pulley set up. LMS sells both kits. You will find out it's a pretty good machine after these two corrections are made. I smashed one gear and replaced it with the gas spring. It's a real surprise to have the head drop and the cutter gouge into a part. Same thing with the pulley setup. I would recomend ordering those two kits when placing the order for the mini mill. Tweaking the gibs and tramming the head to the table also helps. They are always out of zero on the left to right side of the table. Also mine was out front to back on the table and required shims between the column and the base. After all these adjustments it works great. It's not a Bridgeport mill so you have to consider it only for small hobby type jobs. I am presently using it to make a minature hit and miss engine. You can't expect a $400 +or _ machine to compete with one costing a few thousand dollars. I say you get what you pay for. Boot
I had the bench top milling machine (link below) for 15 years. It worked great. Only recently sold it when I had an opportunity to "trade up" to a nice used Bridgeport. http://www.harborfreight.com/1-1-2-half-horsepower-heavy-duty-milling-drilling-machine-33686.html