New To Me Rockwell 21-100 Milling Machine

I spent a good part of the day getting the Rockwell mill to the shop today. I went to the seller's facility and stripped the mill, down to the column and table/knee assembly. After lunch, where I bribed my friends, Trombone Pete and Norm, to pickup the stripped mill, on Norm's small utility trailer.

I based my purchase of the mill on my seeing the mill 2 years ago, last week, I saw it again, with a flashlight, it was far dirtier than I had remembered. Nothing serious, just grime and some swarf. With a few towels and some red Brakleen, the grime pretty much wiped right off.

The table moves smoothly side to side and back and forth, knee is tight and smooth, that table has some surface rust, but nothing serious. Over all, I very pleased so far.

I was unable to power up the head assembly, no 3 phase power (Not yet), but the spindle is smooth when moved by hand. Powering the head assembly is high on the To-Do List.

here are a few picturesrockwell mill 001x.jpg rockwell mill 005x.jpg rockwell mill 007x.jpg
 
Congrat's Buffalo, it looks great from the pictures!

Check (remove and clean) the fine feed mechanism - that seems to be one of the weak points on these machines. Mine is in good shape but many have found the worm wheel stripped. Don't know if that's from use or abuse. I find I don't use the fine feed much in favor of the knee for any milling operations anyway.

A lot of people prefer the 3 phase motor with VFD over the single phase motor. There is a guy on Yahoo groups that posted that he is selling some single phase motors that he replaced with 3 PH if you would rather go that way. I am happy with my single phase motor except that the motor/spindle has a lot of inertia and takes awhile to spin to a stop. I think you can program in a motor braking function in the VFD which would be of benefit. There is a brake/lock in the spindle so you can slow it down that way, but there seems to be a difference of opinion whether this is a good practice. I find myself using the brake about 30% of the time.
 
Buffalo - I would second the vote for a VFD. This mill has a pretty fast high speed and it is useful to have some additional low speed control. I only have a single-phase motor, and have been planning to look for a 3PH so I can install a VFD on my 21-100.
 
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