Well that's a pity Randy - but hopefully, it will still find a good home. Apart from the Sieg SU1, these small horizontal machines aren't made any more but they can still do good work for the right person. "Small" is relative of course, a matter of perspective. Depends whether you want to build a 6" scale traction engine or repair watches - or maybe just something in-between (as I do).
I own an Atlas MF and find her very useful & well made. I have a MT2 vertical head for her but also use the Atlas spindle (which is also MT2) directly. It will take all my Myford MT tooling - including my ER32 chucks. For a small mill, it has table feed, is actually pretty rigid (when compared with some small verticals) and something (I really like) a clutch in the drive train. Very useful for some work, where I don't want to turn the motor on and off constantly. The rise and fall 'knee' avoids all the problems some verticals have with head alignment and makes it fairly easy to mount a (simple) vertical head. I also have a Taig ER16 milling head (with self-contained motor) that I will probably fit up in place of the existing (spindle belt-driven) MT2 one eventually (faster spindle whilst retaining table feed if required). She's also well made, nice (1950's) details like keyed handles and should anything go wrong, largely repairable. Simple, old technology but still perfectly usable in my hobby workshop.
Of course, if I do need something larger, I also have a Victoria HO horizontal. The 36" table can traverse about 25" of work under the horizontal arbor, vertical head or spindle. The MT3 vertical head can be turned through 90 degrees, so it can machine/power bore (sideways) quite large pieces on the table that I suspect might be much harder to get under the spindles of most verticals - it is also very rigid even in this set-up. Frankly it's a fairly simple machine but built like the proveriable brick outhouse. Both my horizontals have 1" arbors - so use common arbor tooling. It was also a very inexpensive machine - as (strangely) most folk don't seem to want them.
Which brings me back to the question "Why Horizontal?". Well ( as you may have gathered) because in my view when equipped with a vertical head, you get a very versatile, rugged mill, that is not only robust but usually a lot cheaper than the equivelent sized vertical. You can pretty much do all the things a vertical can do, plus a few things that just seem easier on a horizontal (like gear cutting, splinning, slabbing, sawing etc). A horizontal can also function as a short-bed, large diameter lathe of course. So even if I was starting over again, I'd certainly look for a good horizontal - but preferably a Universal and I'd try to fit it with a vertical head with a drilling quill. I'd then have a machine that could do everything a vertical could do - plus a few things it can't (or is not as good at).
Of course, I'm probably a little unusual in my machine preferences ( I really like shapers too ) - but there you are - I'm beyond redemption I'm afraid.
Friendly regards from the UK.
IanT
