Help choose between two mills

[cooper1203]

does Blondihacks say what mill she has because almost every video she seems to have an issue with space. Not having a pop at her btw as she says she has the machine that suits her situation. I think Ben said he wanted to do the same kind of projects she does ie model engines eventually.

 

[cooper1203]

scratch the above she says what mill she has on her faq looking it up it has 16" of z travel so not relevent here

 

[SouthernChap]

scratch the above she says what mill she has on her faq looking it up it has 16" of z travel so not relevent here

Honestly, I love Quinn and think she has contributed massively to new hobby machinist education over the years. Her lathe skills and mill skills playlists are definitely a must-watch for most beginners.

However, I do think she has been a bit too much influenced by "received wisdom" that exists in the US hobbyists machining culture (not having a pop at US machinists particularly by the way, , there's just as much "received wisdom" in British model engineer culture, and great advice comes from the US hobby machinist community, too). On the other hand her logic behind her assertion that buying a new machine rather than used old iron (an assertion that in and of itself, has its merits to be sure), seems to me to be somewhat flawed and a little bit compensatory: "I've got the space for this PM 10x20, and I'm nervous about dealing with the potential quirks/issues of an old used machine, so I need to justify my choices"

For example, from some of the things she says, anybody buying a mini lathe is doomed to failure in machining, and a PM25 mill is only barely capable of producing good work. It kinda feels like she was getting her apologies to "proper machinists" in first!

As I said previously in this thread, mid/late 20th century English model engineers used milling machines with significantly smaller z space very effectively.

In fact, in the first two thirds of the 20th century, they mostly will have used lathes with 'boring tables' and vertical milling slides; not a lot of vertical space in those.

US hobbyists often have a lot more space for machine tools than British hobbyists, and that can mean that advice that's appropriate for US machinists can be less so for other countries.

As an aside, for anyone who fancies an insight into British Model Engineering culture in the mid/late 20th century, I'd recommend the "Workshop Practice" series of books. These books can often be a bit out of date in some of the techniques they suggest (although not without some merit), but they are quite interesting in what they tell us about the way British Model engineers approached their work, and the constraints they operated within.

The first chapter of "Vertical Machining in the Home Workshop" (the second book in the series) is a real eye opener about the level of capabilities expected to be available in a model engineer's workshop (warning: this book isn't that useful other than as a historical document for those interested in such things; fortunately the workshop practice books are cheap enough to just buy for interest's sake).

 

[cooper1203]

dont get me wrong i have spent hours sat in the cab at some god forsaken rdc waiting to be tipped watching her stuff. I am in no position to judge her as i have yet to turn my first chip!

I will be in a simular position as the o/p when i decide to buy a mill I dont have the space for a bridgeport or any floor standing older brand and will need a bench top one which there seem to be very few around second hand of british or american brands (myford have one on their site but twice the price of the walco ones discussed above) so my only option may well be chineseium

warning: this book isn't that useful other than as a historical document for those interested in such things; fortunately the workshop practice books are cheap enough to just buy for interest's sake)

tell me about it i bought the one on lathe work for some ideas of things to make while i honned my skills and learnt first project is a scribe block 11 project is a milling chuck

 

[pontiac428]

About the z axis issue, I'm all for making yourself a riser block to overcome that limitation. Easy job, nothing to lose, and all the positives to gain. Drilling holes is where you'll want the extra z the most. Adding an extra 3-4" with a block and some high grade studs should cover it.

 

[Aaron_W]

scratch the above she says what mill she has on her faq looking it up it has 16" of z travel so not relevent here

Her older mill was a PM25 with 13" of Z travel. She replaced it (PM gifted her) with a PM728VT which while similar in size has a significantly larger working range including 16" of Z travel.

I kind of feel like her comments about the size of her machines is almost proactive against unrelenting comments to get "real" machines. She has mentioned several times in her FAQs that she is often asked why she doesn't go to bigger machines, and her answer has been, because what she has is working for her.

As the owner of small machines I can say regardless of what you make, you will occasionally bump into size issues somewhere, spindle bore, swing, length, z axis something will be pushing the envelope. I don't think you get away from that until you get into full size knee mill and 14x40 lathe class machines, and they make even bigger machines for a reason.

About the z axis issue, I'm all for making yourself a riser block to overcome that limitation. Easy job, nothing to lose, and all the positives to gain. Drilling holes is where you'll want the extra z the most. Adding an extra 3-4" with a block and some high grade studs should cover it.

Clausing offered a 4" riser block for their 8500 series mills. I have one on mine and am very glad for it, the difference between 12" and 16" is significant. I could work with 12", but the extra 4" of height means I only worry about height on occasion rather than having it be an issue on many tasks. I can hold work in the vise that I might have to work on the table with only 12".

Only downside to a riser block is you create a gap between the low point of the spindle and the table, but at the sizes involved that rarely is a serious issue, almost have to work at making it a problem.

 

[SouthernChap]

dont get me wrong i have spent hours sat in the cab at some god forsaken rdc waiting to be tipped watching her stuff. I am in no position to judge her as i have yet to turn my first chip!

I will be in a simular position as the o/p when i decide to buy a mill I dont have the space for a bridgeport or any floor standing older brand and will need a bench top one which there seem to be very few around second hand of british or american brands (myford have one on their site but twice the price of the walco ones discussed above) so my only option may well be chineseium


tell me about it i bought the one on lathe work for some ideas of things to make while i honned my skills and learnt first project is a scribe block 11 project is a milling chuck

If you're talking about "Lathework a complete course", by Harold Hall, that in my humble (or not so!) opinion, is one of the very good ones.

It's not really suitable for someone who has never touched a lathe, or has never done any benchwork, and you do have to know how to read drawings (That Lazy Machinist on YouTube has a really good set of videos on that topic) but once you're some way through Quinn's Lathe Skills playlist, the projects on offer are a really good way of honing skills.

And it is a course rather than a 'grab-bag' of projects, so the idea is to do them in order.

The Harold Hall books are all pretty good as are the ones by Tubal Cain. They're not total beginner books, but really for people who are at the stage where they have got themselves comfortable with the basic operations on a machine tool (on a lathe, for example, turning to a specific diameter, facing, drilling, basic boring, parting off, those sorts of things).

One final thing, most of these books have a particular style of writing. They're written by men who were far from young in the 1980's and as a consequence have a style that is of its time. It takes a bit of concentration to read but then, these are technical books, not Andy McNab page turners.

 

[Aaron_W]

If you're talking about "Lathework a complete course", by Harold Hall, that in my humble (or not so!) opinion, is one of the very good ones.

It's not really suitable for someone who has never touched a lathe, or has never done any benchwork, and you do have to know how to read drawings (That Lazy Machinist on YouTube has a really good set of videos on that topic) but once you're some way through Quinn's Lathe Skills playlist, the projects on offer are a really good way of honing skills.

And it is a course rather than a 'grab-bag' of projects, so the idea is to do them in order.

The Harold Hall books are all pretty good as are the ones by Tubal Cain. They're not total beginner books, but really for people who are at the stage where they have got themselves comfortable with the basic operations on a machine tool (on a lathe, for example, turning to a specific diameter, facing, drilling, basic boring, parting off, those sorts of things).

One final thing, most of these books have a particular style of writing. They're written by men who were far from young in the 1980's and as a consequence have a style that is of its time. It takes a bit of concentration to read but then, these are technical books, not Andy McNab page turners.

I have picked up a bunch of the workshop series books. Agree they come from a perspective of knowing the basics, probably aimed at people who had metal shop in school or otherwise have a grasp of the basics.

I have really come to appreciate older (1970s or earlier) text books as their writing style I find easier to follow along with. Hard to put into words, but I feel like the older books were written to teach from, where many later texts feel like they are just there to supplement a lecture.

Hard to go wrong with the classics South Bend's How to run a lathe or Atlas's Manual of Lathe Operations (often just MOLO).

 

[SouthernChap]

Hard to go wrong with the classics South Bend's How to run a lathe or Atlas's Manual of Lathe Operations (often just MOLO).

Yep, managed to find the South Bend book second hand for not much from an general house clearance eBay seller.

I got the Atlas MOLO for what I thought was a good price but it turned out to be a not very good printout of the commonly available pdf, not particularly well bound.

Both should be in any hobby machinist's library really (preferably hard copy but digital at least, if not ).

 

[RaisedByWolves]

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.

Im still reading it as them only giving the knee/head travel and not the work envelope.

Am I off base?