Small mill advice

I think you would be a lot happier with the standard mill/drill setup like G3358 Prices run in the $1000 range from Grizzly,

and others.

Look for at least 1 hp, table travel in the 6"x18" range, R8 spindle, etc.

These units are way hevier than you want to move around but they have the hp and rigidity to th> Would like to buy a small hobby mill. Think grizzly might be good as to

For context here, I'm also a hobbyist though I've been at it for three decades. I've never been a professional machinist.

Small machines like this can mill steel just fine if you take small enough bites per pass. Rigidity is far more important than horsepower in a small mill. The motor on my Bridgeport J-head is only 1 HP.

Rigidity does seem to go with weight. If you want light weight then you must expect less rigidity. In hobby work, that's only a time limitation. It doesn't take a lot of rigidity or horsepower to skin a few thou off of steel or even 303 stainless witha sharp endmill. It just takes patience.

Sharp well-ground endmills can make a big difference. They cost about double the price of cheap imports and work at least twice as well. That could make the difference between satisfaction and frustration with a small mill working with steel.

Since price is not a strong limiting factor for you, I'd say go for a small machine. It may well do what you want to do just fine. If it doesn't, or if what you want to do gets more ambitious, you'll learn from it what you might like down the road.

When we're done buying tools we're ready for burial, right?

My newest toy is a Miller 210 MIG machine. Ernie advised me that it is an excellent machine, nuff said. I thought I knew how to weld but I now see that I have ample opportunity for growth ... I'm making strong sound welds with it, still pursuiing beauty. I'm already sure I'm gonna like that hoss a lot when I learn to ride it well.

Thanks for the advice. Perhaps I should consider this. Do you know if something like the G3358 would come in pieces or even apart for movement into a basement? This would make things easier. I'm not crazy of the thought of getting 600 lbs down the steps though I would be lucky in that it is a straight shot from the garage straight down into the basement.

Thanks

Barry

Hi Barry-

As a hobbyist, I think you would be very happy to have one of these.

I have one of these and have found it to be a capable little machine.

Things to consider:

1 - _Strongly_ consider getting a version of this with an R8 spindle (Harbor Freight has one). You will have a much better time finding toolholding, collets, etc. Think hard about this. Look into the availablitly of the MT3 toolholding (not as easy to find). Also, if youever get another larger mill, it is a lot more likely to have an R8 spindle, so what you already have (would have) will work nicely.

2 - Don't overlook the likely need for a few hundred bucks worth of cutting tools, workholding and so on. Having a mill is great, but the supplied drillchuck will not be good holder for end mills. You will need a clamp kit at a minimum and most likely would want a vice of some sort and a few end mill holders and endmills, drills, etc.

3 - Since this has a dovetail "z-axis" you will not loose position when raising & lowering the head - a major plus. This a problem with may of the round column smaller machines that are sold in this size range. Search this newsgroup to see what people have to go through not to lose position for those round column types - avoid the problem all together if possible.

4 - This will not hog material like a bridgeport mill and you will certainly not be drilling 2" holes thru a 2" stainless block with this machine, but it is capabale of cutting steel, stainless, etc. and will perform if you let it - alot depends on the tool, speed and your feedrate, but it will do most materials you need to mill.

5 - Generally, this machine is good for doing pieces that fit within a 6" cube or smaller, although that is not the largest size part you can work on: once you get all the workholding, tool offsets and the available machine travel, this is the likel size you can confortably work in.

In my past, I was a toolmaker and worked with "real" machines all day.

I like what this one can do and is a good value for the money spent.

Later -

SMA

Check for a review of these small mills. Also if you can find a Homier traveling tool show, they sell the r-8 version for $399.

There are several groups on Yahoo that support the mini-mill.

Howard owner of one.

Avoid the round column machines ... these are commonly called "Mill-Drills", and are much more drills than mills. The smaller machine you mention would be the better mill (if with a bit less capacity). It's still a 'mill-drill' of sorts (no knee), but has dovetail vertical ways to hold head alignment far better than any round column machine.

Most 'true' milling machines have (more or less) fixed heads with a 'knee' that rise and falls on dovetail ways to carry the table. This allows the head to table distance to be varied without losing whatever alignment you may have established between the head and work.

With a round column machine, every time you need to change the table to head distance (by raising the head), as when changing cutters, you lose alignment. You can re-establish it again, but it wastes time. If you do a lot of tool changing , which is common with a mill, you can waste a LOT of time re-doing your set up.

SERIOUSLY consider a bigger mill with a real knee, perhaps like the Grizzly G3102, an A1S type mill. This is a HUGE amount more machine than the mill-drills. It is larger, heavier, and more expensive though.

Still, even a mill-drill is a LOT better than no mill at all!

Dan Mitchell ==========

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:40:05 GMT, RoyJ calmly ranted:

I picked up one of the $20 pneumatic-wheeled hand trucks from HF when they were on sale and the things are good for 600 lbs IF you can handle it yourself. One of those would be good to slide 300 lb objects into the basement. I can't believe how much easier it is to move things around with that truck. Wonderful!

That G1006 looks nice, and it's closer to my budget (IF I had a budget) than the G9959 that I'd prefer. ;)

-- Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Turkey and Drive --

The SEIG minimills like the G8689 are decent machines in my opinion.

The Harbor Freight and Homier versions have R-8 spindles (ie. the same taper found on a Bridgeport). The Grizzly and Micromark versions have morse tapers. R-8 collets are cheap and easily available.

Whichever model you get, be sure to turn the X handwheel and watch the dial. The Micromark version has a true inch leadscrew with a dial that makes sense. The rest have a really strange thread pitch and a equally strange dial.

I have one of the HF equivalents of the G8689, haven't used it too much yet, only a couple of jobs. For the size, it's pretty rigid, works well with the cutters I've asked it to turn, up to 3/8" end mills. Don't remember if the Griz has an R-8 spindle, but the HF does. As others have said, Morse taper tooling is available, hard to find, and expensive. That would be one of the first things to look at. Several things to consider, it's a small machine, made for small work, and like any machine that's overloaded, it doesn't handle big jobs well. When you get it, it's not adjusted properly, the gibs are loose, and I still have to scrape the column in to be square. The head tilts from side to side, along with the whole column, but it's heavy if you're doing it alone, and squaring it up again isn't a treat. My guess, I haven't tried it yet, is that a 1/2" end mill is going to be just about the limit that you can pull with it and have any good result.

On the plus side, it seems to pull well, even with the electronic speed controller. Having the two geared ranges helps, and it has pretty good height clearance for the size of the machine. Again, it's not made for big stuff. The materials I've tried it on were both nasty, 321 stainless and Ammco 21, it handled it about as well as my bigger KBC did, but the parts are small and so was the cutter. MIlling can eat a lot of power, but you're limited to what the machine will stand without chattering itself into oblivion.

For small, light work, it should handle just about anything I'd ask it to do. For something bigger, that's why I also have the bigger machine. The biggest problem I've found is trying to find a milling vise that isn't too big for it.

Suggest you get answers to these questions from the appropriate user group (8689)

1. Does the column positively lock at the chosen tilt angle - I think there is only a single bolt to tighten against movement.
2. How prone are the plastic gears to breaking?

1. How much play is there in the fine Z feed?

My choice (I'm just learning this stuff and in a similar position to you) would be the 1005 machine.

At this end of the market though you just end up picking which problem you can live with! Hence the other guys suggestions to go up market as much as you can.

Regards

Steve

Haven't seen the whole thread, sorry if any of this is duplicated.

was the one I was finally able to get (traveling show). I was able to compare it to was not only cheaper, but appeared stouter built. 2 things, from what I could see, it had the same components (bearings, head, support column) as the 14" drillpress next to it (cheaper price if I recall correctly but sans the X-table), and if you mount a vise, there would be almost no room between the vice and a bit. Because of pervious comments about using a drillpress as a mill, and some of the other features of the mini-mill, I bought the

3947.

Joel. phx

The mill-drills I believe are all shipped like the drillpresses that is the head, column, and base are separate and so can be carried as pieces into your shop for assembly.

The thread pitch is not strange and it's not metric as some would have you believe, it's 16 tpi. The Grizzly dial is messed up, no doubt. The Homier dial is normal (just read thousandths off of the dial). The only weirdness is that the one turn is 1/16" or .0625, so there is a half division at the end of the turn that you need to keep track, if it matters to you. I didn't find it that hard.

I put a kit DRO on mine. I think that's a better upgrade than going to the 20 tpi leadscrews that Micromark sells.

The Seig lathes, however, do actually have metric screws (with the exception of Micromark).

Anybody considering one of these (mill or lathe) should study

first. Everything that you need to know is there.

-Greg

I am also a HSM. I use a round column Rong Fu type mill/drill which does most of what I need to do. If, however, I was doing it now I would probably opt for the Grizzly G0519 mill or similar. This mill comes with a 3 phase motor so you will need a VFD (~$200 from dealerselectric.com) unless you have 3 phase power in your workshop. That isn't really so bad because you get a variable speed capability that makes the mill more useful. The 1 hp motor should be enough power to do most milling jobs. I would suggest an x axis power feed (~ $200 from harborfreight.com). This will give you a better finish on cuts and can really save time. The total cost of the G0519 and the above accessories will run about $1900, which is not a bad deal. By way of comparison you can get a HF round column mill with a power feed for about half that price.

You can disassemble this mill into small enough chunks to make it moveable. This mill has vastly more capability than the mini-mill.