bridgeport ceiling clearance

That's plenty.
Jeridiah wrote:

My BP sits on 4" high feet under an 8' ceiling and there is enough room to remove the drawbar.
Randy

You also want about an 8 x 8 ft footprint space.

Yeah, I had that from previous measurements. I have been playing the CAD shuffle game for awhile, so I have the footprints(working window) of all of my machines.
Just wasn't sure on that 3rd D. :) Didn't feel like doing the whole shop in solid.
JW

In article , Jeridiah writes
For what it's worth, my Bridgie is sitting in a space in the shop where there isn't enough room to get the drawbar out vertically.
I haven't yet needed to remove it. If and when I do, I'll drop the head to one side, do what I need to do, raise the head, then re-tram.

Never do this (put it in such a location) with a 30 taper machine.
Gunner
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." - Ayn Rand, from "Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapons"

Why not? My Bridgeport Series I (CNC) has a 30-taper spindle, with a quick-change Erickson nose. It uses no drawbar normally, and the spindle was too gunked up to have a chance to use it with a drawbar when I first got it. (I still plan to put in a drawbar when I use the boring head and other things with serious unbalanced loads, but for normal end mills, the quick-change locking ring seems to suffice.
Enjoy, DoN.

For most scroungers the two draw bolt diamters of 1/2" and 3/8" means that if you manage to scounge up Cat30, and NNTP30 and Standard30 taper tooling etc, you will be changing draw bolts occasionally. While my single Cat30 holder with collets generally gets me through the job, I occasionally have to install a standard 30 endmill holder or other type of tool and this means swapping out the drawbolt. I made a holder on the side of the machine just to hold it, and they are color coded.
Your Ericson taper is a good rig, but others have to get by with the usual mix and match
My Clausing horizontal has two threaded sections on the drawbolt for this exact thing and Ive considered making a new general purpose one for the big Gorton. Im fortunate tthat all my mills except one, use 30 whatever taper tooling.
Gunner
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." - Ayn Rand, from "Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapons"

[ ... ]
O.K. I can sympathize with that. I've been known to take a CAT-30 and pop it in the lathe to turn the flange down to the proper dimensions for the Erickson spindle to handle.
[ ... ]
While I've got a mix. The Bridgeport takes 30-taper, while the much smaller Nichols takes 40-taper (though it will accept a 30-taper with an adaptor, which I have and use.
I've had to make spare drawbars for the Nichols for just that reason. The one which came with it (and which appears shop-made) was for the original Nichols arbors, and won't handle either the other standard 40-taper thread or the 30-taper ones.
However -- the vertical head for it came with the original drawbar. It has a different thread on each end, and the nut is a cylinder with a pair of wrench flats milled on it. It has two different sized tapped holes, so it can be reversed to fit on the reversed drawbar to handle the other standard thread. I've had to make a spare drawbar to fit the nut to handle the 30-taper tooling.
I've also heat-released the Loctite holding the draw studs into some CAT-40 holders and turned up adaptors to allow the smaller of the standard drawbars to work with the adapted holders.
Enjoy, DoN.