Bridgeport 9 x 32 Mill

I have one of these. The round ram, itself, is no major problem. They can be frozen in place, though, so you might check on that. (Dovetail rams can ALSO be frozen, and they are even harder to free up.)

The footprint is identical to later bridgeports, except the sides need a little less room due to less X axis table travel. Does this one have an M head? (You can tell because it has 6 belt speeds and no back gear.) I had to trade my M head for a J head, which involved a fair bit of money and some machine work to adapt the head. It is a kluge, but I'd NEVER go back. The stiffness of the spindle, the extra inch of quill travel, and the back gear for much lower speeds are the big advantages. Also, the R-8 spindle taper is much more available in all sorts of arbors and holders. The M head came with 3 tapers, B&S #7 being the most common for milling attachments. There was also MT #2 (I think, maybe 3) and Bridgeport's proprietary C taper - good luck finding ANY tooling in C taper.

The other difference on this machine is the Y axis travel on the shorter knee is 9". Newer machines have a deeper knee and 12" of Y travel. I bump into this a lot, and so I'm scraping in an old Bridgeport BOSS knee and saddle to eventually retrofit on my machine.

To specifically answer your question, you need about 48" front-back, and about 65" side to side.

Jon

No experience, but there is useful background information here:-

I find the 9 x 32 table perfectly suited to the work I do. Many folks find the odd tapers in the old M head to be a problem, but I'm not a real machinist so I can make my own B.&S. #7 tooling. In fact, the shorter table fits better in my shop. The shop built feeds are a big improvement, but then again, I'm not a professional machinist so I can do this stuff. :-)

George Willer