harborfreight mill

WHICH HF mill? They offers several, but only one true 'knee' mill IIRC.

The 'knee' mill they offer is a bench version of the A1S type. The basic A1S is a decent mill (if you don't have the room for a Bridgeport clone ... the A1S is only about 60% as large). The A1S type is sold in both bench and floor models, and imported by MANY different vendors (Wholesale tool, KBC, Jet, Grizzly, etc.). Quality varies with what the importer is willing to pay for. The machines are all about the same in basic structure, but vary in fit, finish, and features. HF is not likely to be one of the better ones, but has the lowest price I've seen ($1600). The (likely) 'better' grade A1S machines sell in the $1800 - $2500 range.

Like many HF products, I suspect this may be acceptable relative to it's cost, but consider it a 'work in progress'. Be prepared to spend some money and time on bringing it up to a 'finished' state. This is true of almost ALL imported low cost machine tools, but usually MORE true of HF stuff.

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

Restoreit1 wrote:

Pat:

You might want to do a little more research and restate the question. Which bench knee mill? What are you going to make with it?

On 17 Oct 2003 06:30:49 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (Restoreit1) pixelated:

Look to Grizzly.com instead. They use the same sourcing but have a whole lot higher quality control standards than Harbor Fright. You won't pay a whole lot more for the difference but it will pay for itself in time and headaches saved. Griz is a good company who cares a whole lot more about you than HFT. That said, I buy from both.

I'm more of a wooddorker so I like their G9959 myself. ;)

------------------------------- Iguana: The other green meat! -------------------------------

Comprehensive Website Development

I was at Harbor Freight last weekend and they had many of there mills and lathes in the store. They would need a LOT of setup work.

Jim Geib Mansfield, Ohio

Like what?

The units I seen in Columbus would have to be almost completly taken apart and cleaned. There was so much dirt and grime under the ways, they would not have lasted a month. The castings all are very rough. It looked solid, but cheap. If you have a store near you go look at it first.

Jim geib Masnfield, Ohio

There is one of these available in Van Nuys, California, in quite good condition. The seller is negotiable. Its badged as a "Husky" and from the looks of it, is a respectable knee mill, about 60% the size of a BP.

If anyone is interested...call Gus at 818-894-9257. Gus is hispanic, and is a hell of a nice guy, a struggling small scale machine tool dealer in a very small way. He is (so far) on my Trusted List. Its 110/220 single phase

Gunner

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

With nearly any of the imported mills or lathes, you want to strip them down first thing, clean out all the packing grease and grit, drain any gearbox, clean out the casting sand, etc. Burrs need to be removed, sharp edges broken with a stone, etc. Then reassemble, lubricate, and adjust. You'd want to do much the same with most used American machines too, with the addition that the used machine will probably need some worn parts replaced, and a paint job too.

Gary

I bought their micro mill/drill (the $300.00 one, but paid about $200 after tax) and have used it < 1 hour - so far so good, but plan on breaking it down and cleaning it, figuring out what to lube what with, and am waiting for some parts from China to hopefully fix backlash problems with z axis.

I was going to clean it with mineral spirits and blow it dry with compressed air, but reading your post concerns me where "adjustment" is concerned. The "manual" is nothing more than a (mostly pitiful) parts breakdown. There are no specs for draw bar thread, the t-nuts are metric, and no tolerances whatsoever are listed, though run out is good enough that I am not breaking miniature carbide circuit board sized bits like I was with a drill press.

How would one know what kind of adjustments to make and what to use to lubricate which parts with? Would there be any parts which need to be torqued to specific ranges - heck - in short, am in way over my head?!

Any comments or help, resources, etc. would be greatly appreciated! I plan on using it to drill circuit boards, and customize an enclosure (which I have yet to figure out how to jig up to cut a square hole in it in the same place from one piece to the next). Later I may use it for other things, but without a lathe or much metalworking knowledge, I may have to stick to dreaming about it... .

About the only thing I know it needs beyond factory components is a chip shield plastic or rubber piece to keep shavings out of the table workings. Oh, I also think the dial settings are a bit inaccurate (or perhaps its my technique ).

Sorry for the long post.

TIA

SBK

There are dozens of web sites devoted to the Chinese mini -lathes and mills and how to dial them in. Some of the best are commercial sites that sell accessories and parts. Try

for openers.

-Carl

[ ... ] [ ... ]

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This is particularly important if you are cutting G-10 printed circuit board material, as it produces particularly abrasive swarf.

Hmm ... always feed in the same direction, so backlash doesn't come into it.

Perhaps the leadscrews are metric, but the dials are marked in the nearest inch equivalent. (E.g. is it 0.0-0.125" on the scale? If so, it is probably really .128" per turn (3.25mm pitch), so movements requiring more than a full turn of the feedwheels starts getting wrong in a hurry. :-)

For that, perhaps the best thing is to get some of the DRO assemblies made around the beam of a digital caliper, to read how far things *actually* moved.

Good Luck, DoN.

You simply cut the jaws off and attach them.

That is a good question.

I'm considering the Homier mill since it has the R8 spindle.

|I'm considering the Homier mill since it has the R8 spindle.

Speaking of which, Homier shows a small mill or mill-drill on their site for $199. That looks like a reasonable substitute for a benchtop drill. I don't recall seeing this particula machine in HF or anywhere else. Anyone have any experience with it? Rex in Fort Worth

?dept=1 I didn't see it on display when I visited a tent sale recently. I have to say I was not impressed with the drill presses I saw there, but this costs quite a bit more so may have better quality.

|> > I'm considering the Homier mill since it has the R8 spindle. |> |> Speaking of which, Homier shows a small mill or mill-drill on their site for |> $199. That looks like a reasonable substitute for a benchtop drill. I don't |> recall seeing this particula machine in HF or anywhere else. |> Anyone have any experience with it? |> Rex in Fort Worth | |

?dept=1| |I didn't see it on display when I visited a tent sale recently. I have |to say I was not impressed with the drill presses I saw there, but |this costs quite a bit more so may have better quality.

Here's the photo

Rex in Fort Worth

Nope, they didn't have it on display.

They had those when they were here in Phoenix. I really didn't see much difference between one and a drillpress. The bearing looked the same size as the press right next to it. By the time you got tooling and clamps, there really wasn't any work area anyway.

I got the impression that these guys took the stuff off the truck when they arrived, but that was it. They might have had one on the truck you could buy, but they weren't gonna haul it off just for display.

Joel.phx

No, it has a MT-3 spindle. R-8 is not an option on the Homier mill/drill, BUT for the price ($599 if you can buy it off the truck and avoid expensive shipping) it is a good deal. Don't be discouraged by it not having R-8. MT-3 tooling is widely available and the cost is actually no greater in most cases. This mill/drill, BTW, appears to be identical to the Harbor Freight 33686 model, and the Enco model.

Oh I was just thinking of the mini. As you say the larger one is MT-3. It certainly weighs a helluva lot more...

vs