I am looking at buying a milling machine for my home shop, I build 3/4" scale locomotives, I have a 10" Atlas lathe and have been doing my milling on the lathe right now but that is getting old and I can't always accomplish what I want to do. I would like to find a nice Atlas milling machine to compliment my lathe, but I don't want a restoration project and the nice ones bring alot of money. I have seriously looked at Sherline equipment and like the attachments available but feel it might be borderline small for what I want to do. The other mill I have looked at is the Milling machine offered by My Little Machine Shop, I like the features (R8 spindle) and is my price range with the accessory package. My question is would I be happy with this machine or should I hold out for an Atlas horizontal Mill. What would be more practical to use? I do have access to a Bridgeport mill at work anytime I want to use it for anything larger that what a small machine can do. Thanks, Zach
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Opinion on milling machines
- Thread starter H&NERy
- Start date
I just went through this process and found the best used mill/drill in terms of availability, pricing and size was the good old round column RF25 series like this one:
http://micro-machine-shop.com/rong_fu_rf_25_mill.htm (Grizzly G1005) The RF30/31 G1006 is larger and about 250lbs heavier - pretty difficult to move by yourself.
Plenty available at < $500, relatively easy to move in pieces, moderate footprint, dead quiet, adequate for steel in a HSM environment, easy to repair (no noisy gears, troublesome dc controllers) and I actually prefer the round column as it allows you to swivel the head for more versatile setups. R8/ MT3 doesn't really matter, get an ER2x collet chuck and collets to handle most tooling INCLUDING drill bits so you won't need a chuck.
My 1st choice was a small knee mill like the clausing 85xx but impossible to find locally. The X2 series just too small and not rigid enough for steel.
If I was to buy new, in the 1k price range, I'd go for a dovetail column like the BF20 clone or Grizzly G0704, the major concern being unreliable motor/controllers and noisy gear trains.
http://micro-machine-shop.com/rong_fu_rf_25_mill.htm (Grizzly G1005) The RF30/31 G1006 is larger and about 250lbs heavier - pretty difficult to move by yourself.
Plenty available at < $500, relatively easy to move in pieces, moderate footprint, dead quiet, adequate for steel in a HSM environment, easy to repair (no noisy gears, troublesome dc controllers) and I actually prefer the round column as it allows you to swivel the head for more versatile setups. R8/ MT3 doesn't really matter, get an ER2x collet chuck and collets to handle most tooling INCLUDING drill bits so you won't need a chuck.
My 1st choice was a small knee mill like the clausing 85xx but impossible to find locally. The X2 series just too small and not rigid enough for steel.
If I was to buy new, in the 1k price range, I'd go for a dovetail column like the BF20 clone or Grizzly G0704, the major concern being unreliable motor/controllers and noisy gear trains.
This can be lessened by removing the eye glass port on the right side (facing the mill) and with a long 3/8" wide brush generously apply wheel bearing grease to all the gears. I found this to quiet the machine a lot. Adding a pancake fan can reduce to motor temperature by as much as 40° F. I have my fan set to come on when the air exiting the top of the motor reaches 100°F, which in the summer happens very fast here in Kissimmee especially if I am running near 3000 rpm.
Yes, you can easily get 3000 rpm from the G0704 by maxing the pot.
Not sure if you saw this on LittleMachineShop.com, it's a side-by-side comparison of mini mills.
http://littlemachineshop.com/Info/minimill_compare.php
A friend of mine at work bought the MicroLux High Precision Heavy Duty R8 and Lathe and he's very happy with both.
All are basically the same machine with a few differences based on requirements of retailer.
From what he told me, advantages of the MicroLux is they clean and inspect every machine before shipping. All others come as shipped from China complete with packing grease, sand, and grit.
They have CNC conversion kits for these machines as well if you're considering ever going that route.
If you're wanting something bigger, I found a lot of opinions on various sites both good and bad. In general, Grizzly machines tended to have the best feedback and most say the customer support is top notch.
Myself, I shopped around for about 3 years and finally found a Clausing 8520 on eBay for $1400, but cost me $600 to have it shipped. I did get a bunch of tooling with buying a used mill though.
If you're wanting a horizontal mill, as your post implied, not much I could help you with there.
Hope this helps.
http://littlemachineshop.com/Info/minimill_compare.php
A friend of mine at work bought the MicroLux High Precision Heavy Duty R8 and Lathe and he's very happy with both.
All are basically the same machine with a few differences based on requirements of retailer.
From what he told me, advantages of the MicroLux is they clean and inspect every machine before shipping. All others come as shipped from China complete with packing grease, sand, and grit.
They have CNC conversion kits for these machines as well if you're considering ever going that route.
If you're wanting something bigger, I found a lot of opinions on various sites both good and bad. In general, Grizzly machines tended to have the best feedback and most say the customer support is top notch.
Myself, I shopped around for about 3 years and finally found a Clausing 8520 on eBay for $1400, but cost me $600 to have it shipped. I did get a bunch of tooling with buying a used mill though.
If you're wanting a horizontal mill, as your post implied, not much I could help you with there.
Hope this helps.