I bought the RF-30 mill. It was cheap enough, but I was hesitant about whether I would get any use out of it, but then I figured its got to be better than either of my drill presses and the price was a lot less than any good drill press. The seller threw in some tooling and an old 8.5 by 18 HF
31316 lathe to get me to close the deal.I figured out the basics of the mill pretty quick. Its biggest limitation is the rigidity of the quill. It is way better than either of my drill presses and still quite a bit better than the cheap mill drill I use as a "better" drill press. However at full extension I can feel atleast a few thousandths deflection with the quill locked. A couple quick runs with a face mill on aluminum pretty much confirmed this from the fair finish quality. Basically its exactly what I expected. The vises, mills, several chucks, several collets, clamping set, etc were a nice little bonus.
About the "free" lathe.
I didn't think a whole lot of the lathe, but figured it had to be worth a couple hundred bucks. Its not bad, but not great Somebody must have worked on it at one time because the center line of the chuck is pretty close to parallel with the ways. The tailstock is adjusted pretty darn close too. There is where the good news ends.
The pulley's were jacked around for maximum speed. I think two of the pulleys are actually reversed on the shafts to give greater speed increase. Its enough that it bogs down the motor on startup. It claims it only has a
3/4 HP motor, but once it gets going its unstoppable. I mean it will hog a .06 deep thread in one pass in 1" aluminum rod. Badly, LOL, but it does it. (its way to fast for thread cutting the way it is.)Anyway, the speed was jacked up to use it for wood turning. I know because everything was full of sawdust.
If anybody has one of these things I'ld sure appreciate a picture of the pulleys and belts, and the size of the belts. They are certainly not the original belts if I am correct about the pulley setup. The way they are now its impossible to slow the machine down enough to do real (or surreal) metal work.
The next bad news. The saddle itself is sloppy on the ways. The ways themselves don't look bad or even worn, but the way to adjust the saddle is not immediately apparent. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but a scan of the original manual or atleast the exploded parts diagrams would sure be nice.
More bad news. Some of the threads listed in the gear chart are impossible to cut. No kidding. If I try to install the gears for one thread I tried I found one gear would not reach the threading drive gear, and the other was so big it would hit the pulley. I think somebody figured out the ratio when it was originally built and never bothered to check if the gears would fit. LOL.
One small bit of good news. After I got the compounded apart, sawdust cleaned out, relubed, and reassembled it I found its slightly more rigid than the mini lathe. Of course that doesn't help until I figure out how to tighten up the saddle on the ways.
Pictures? Manual? Anybody?
I already posted on CNCZONE in the manual section, and on the 8x18 lathe group on Yahoo.
Now for a scary thought. I'm considering CNCing it, but in a way to retain manual operation. LOL (it really is better than the mini lathe in some ways)