Welder looking to buy a mill/drill for home use

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Teglove2

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Hello everyone!

I'm a new member here on this forum. I own my own fabrication business and recently my cheap drill press died. For a few years now I've been watching videos/reading about many of the different mill/drills on the market from PM, Grizzly, LMS, and Weiss. My main focus will be drilling thick carbon steels and surfacing fixture plates that I use for my turbo manifolds. Now I have 220 in my garage but both outlets are in use, so I'd like to buy the most capable machine using 110v. I have sought out advice from a machinist trainer friend I know, and he can't give me a clear answer.

I've seen videos on all the machines for sale listed above from 1hp-2hp etc. I simply cannot decide on which is the best option. Before anyone wastes their time and says just buy a bridgeport, I'm not. They're too big, bulky, and I need 110v. Weiss just released their new EM line of machines that look nice but none of them are stateside which makes me nervous buying from a chinese company direct.

Any solid advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you
 
Teglove2 said:
My main focus will be drilling thick carbon steels and surfacing fixture plates
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That kind of sounds like you need something heavier than a typical, mill-drill. IMHO, you'll want something with a geared head and at least 2hp. That's is the most you'll realistically get with the voltage limitation, and you'll need a 20A circuit. Is it possible to share the outlet with your other 220v equipment, simply swap plugs when you need to use the mill?
 
I have thought about that but I really dont want to be constantly unplugging machines. The outlets are also blocked by a large surfacing sander that's a giant pain to move. It really needs to be a 110v machine. Thank you for your input.
 
mickri said:
How thick is the carbon steel? What's your budget?
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The plates are typically 1.5" thick but all I'll need to do is mill maybe .040-.060" off to get it flat. Budget with tooling no more than 5k to my door
 
Teglove2 said:
so I'd like to buy the most capable machine using 110v. I have sought out advice from a machinist trainer friend I know, and he can't give me a clear answer.
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I’m in that same class area/job envelope I think. I didn’t want a Bridgeport either. My fallback info was through my brother who actually worked as a machinist and he was not supportive of any of my inquiries I fwd’d to him. I was concentrating on used mill/drills because my budget was way less and power requirements along with size were limiting factors.

One of the parameters that is important besides 110v is weight. I went with an old RF 30 made in the ‘80’s that weighs almost 700lbs w/2hp made in Taiwan. It’s round column and belt drive which some hate but I have adapted to. This is more than the Weiss with more substantial cast iron head and motor. The weight also puts it in the class that Rockwell and Clausing used to make. There are other designs that are in that range that Grizzly import too.
 
The only smaller machine I've run is my PM lathe, so I guess if we're limited to bench machines that's where I'd say to look.

Here's a model that looks pretty nice. The machines from Taiwan are said to be higher quality and QA. That would be about 4k delivered. One thing I like about this one is the head nod adjustment. It is a pain point people have with tramming these smaller mills.

NEW! PM-728VT Ultra Precision Milling Machine – Precision Matthews Machinery Co.

www.precisionmatthews.com www.precisionmatthews.com

You would want a drill chuck for that taper, which looks to be R8. You could also use a straight shank drill chuck in a collet. Both work fine. If you don't have a nice vise, that's worth getting. And a clamping kit if you want to clamp to the table. One of the cheap sets of parallels is worth having for setups as well.

A decent selection of collets is handy. Or just make sure whatever tooling you get will fit the collets you have. For example, there are a bunch of endmill sets that have a 3/8" shank.

For flats, fly cutters are cheaper but slower. With steel, you probably want to consider carbide. One of the smaller shell mills would work if you keep DOC low. Perhaps one of the SEHT insert tools. With the smaller machines, I'm not sure how big you would want to go. I can make my Bridgeport work running a 2.5", but with a low DOC, you should be able to run it on that mill. Mine is from Maritool and I've been very happy with it.
 
get a full size mill, for your needs it will do everything. Or get a radial drill.
the full mill can be an older BP, and you'll save money that way. Even better yet, get a horizontal, vertical combo. So your big parts can be drilled on the horizontal too. You will find older mills especially the big ones for cheaper than the new ones, and in my opinion, they are better made (heavy)
 
Hello and welcome,

I agree with @C-Bag sounds like the perfect use case for and RF30. They are heavy enough to do real work, will run off 110v, and are plentiful on the used market.

If you can't find one used, or don't want to bother they are still available new for a reasonable price.


I had one and replaced it with a 3/4 size Bridgeport clone, but if my shop was bigger I would have kept it. Look around for used, I paid $850 for mine I think, yes the knee mill is more versatile but for what you describe the RF30 will probably be better because there's less to go wrong.

John
 
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