Help choose between two mills

[jwmay]

I guess the question is, is the extra 100 kg and the fact that it's a knee mill make it worth the extra effort and money needed to get a phase inverter and fit it?

Yes.

Do whatever you have to do, to get the knee mill.

Personally, I’d pay the extra 600 for the knee mill with single phase and dro, and consider my money well spent on a significantly more capable machine with zero mods necessary upon delivery.

Idk how long it takes to make 600 pounds, but I do know how long it takes to fiddle around with locating holes for mounting a dro, plus the stress of trying to ensure you get it right. I do know if it comes with single phase, you won’t have to put yourself through the “wing and a prayer” experiment of spending good money on an inverter that “should” work, and going through all the trouble of finding a place to mount it, wire it, and testing it.

If you’re buying new, there’s just no reason for these compromises.

So I think the question should be, “Do you want to buy a machine to work on it, or do work with it?”

Between the two you highlighted, the knee mill is the better platform. Work envelope be damned. If you want more Z, it’ll take a spacer between the main body and upper section. Which is a machining job. Unlike the (designer/fitter/electrician/electronics) job you’re thinking of doing to save 600 quid.

Lastly, I had a bench type machine with an 8x29” table, tons of quill travel, and an excellent work envelope. I now have a knee mill with like two inches of quill travel, and a 6”x24” table.

The knee mill is hands down, without question, objectively superior.

If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be the chosen platform for industry around the world.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Thank you for all of your input.

I was all ready to buy the knee mill when the work envelop was brought up. I hadn’t considered that. The difference in Z height is quite a lot between the two mills.

I’ll have to put some thought in to that.

Best I can tell is they’re giving you mixed measurements on the work envelope.

One says head knee “travel” and the other states work envelope.

You’re going to want to sort that out, but I’d still be in the knee mill camp.

 

[SouthernChap]

not sure where in kent you are but i would be tempted to go to the axminster shop in sittingbourne and look at them. they are basicly the same machine just different sundries bolted to them

Oh, there's an Axminster in Sittingbourne? I'm in West Sussex so I might pop over there sometime. Cheers for the heads up.

To be fair someone at Axminster told me last year that they were trying to get out of the machining market and concentrate on the woodworking market.

There may be differences in the products Axminster and Warco sell. Whilst Warco isn't quite up to the standards of PM in the states, everything I've heard suggests that they are a bit more demanding of the Chinese factories as regards QC than other importers.

 

[cooper1203]

Oh, there's an Axminster in Sittingbourne? I'm in West Sussex so I might pop over there sometime. Cheers for the heads up.

To be fair someone at Axminster told me last year that they were trying to get out of the machining market and concentrate on the woodworking market.

There may be differences in the products Axminster and Warco sell. Whilst Warco isn't quite up to the standards of PM in the states, everything I've heard suggests that they are a bit more demanding of the Chinese factories as regards QC than other importers.

warco are in guildford just along the A272 not sure which is near you

 

[Eddyde]

Thank you for all of your input.

I was all ready to buy the knee mill when the work envelop was brought up. I hadn’t considered that. The difference in Z height is quite a lot between the two mills.

I’ll have to put some thought in to that.

Yes, the knee mill appears to have a much smaller work envelope which kind of negates the advantage of its extra mass. That would be a deal breaker for me. But it really comes down to what kinds of work you intend to do with the machine?
I'd also opt for getting a DRO

 

[SouthernChap]

warco are in guildford just along the A272 not sure which is near you

Warco aren't super far and I do keep meaning to pop up there and have a look-see.

Axminster being in Kent is quite handy too.

There's also a couple of used machinery/tooling dealers in Sussex too.

 

[Aaron_W]

The bench mill is a significantly bigger mill, the knee mill is a better format to work with.

The size of your work is going to be a huge factor here. If you make small stuff the knee mill may be the way to go, but if you want the ability to do larger stuff, that bench mill is your only option between these two.

Warco is not a common brand in the USA, but if you want to search for posts on similar mills to see what kind of comments you can find, the GH appears to be similar to the PM 932, the VMC is similar to Harbor Freights 6x26" knee mill.

 

[cooper1203]

Has the one on the a23 gone? began with a g i think

 

[SouthernChap]

Yes, the knee mill appears to have a much smaller work envelope which kind of negates the advantage of its extra mass. That would be a deal breaker for me. But it really comes down to what kinds of work you intend to do with the machine?

I'd also opt for getting a DRO

I guess the extra mass and rigidity might be handy even in the smaller envelope.

Say you have a Machinery's Handbook sized bit of stainless steel (that size workpiece would fit in the knee mill but it's still got a lot of material that one might want to remove) and you need to hog out a few deep pockets. That extra rigidity might mean you could get the job done in fewer passes than with the column mill, maybe?

Given the existence of TouchDRO (which seems to have features well in advance of most of the DROs bundled with hobbyist machines), I was thinking that bundled DROs might not provide as much weighting to a given candidate that they might appear.

 

[Eddyde]

I guess the extra mass and rigidity might be handy even in the smaller envelope.

Say you have a Machinery's Handbook sized bit of stainless steel (that size workpiece would fit in the knee mill but it's still got a lot of material that one might want to remove) and you need to hog out a few deep pockets. That extra rigidity might mean you could get the job done in fewer passes than with the column mill, maybe?

Given the existence of TouchDRO (which seems to have features well in advance of most of the DROs bundled with hobbyist machines), I was thinking that bundled DROs might not provide as much weighting to a given candidate that they might appear.

Sure, there could always be a situation where the extra rigidity would be nice, but if I had to choose between that and a larger work envelope I choose the latter. Reason, you can always work around a lack of rigidity by taking lighter cuts but when you run out of room, there really isn't much you can do about it. Especially in the Z axis where the vise and tooling quickly eat up available space. The knee mill only has a 328mm (12.9") clearance spindle to table, the bench mill has 450mm (17.7") clearance, that's pretty significant in my opinion.

Yes a touch DRO would offer more features but you need the scales anyway, So getting a factory installed DRO then upgrading the readout wouldn't be a big or costly deal.