Need advise about buying Millrite mill

Send me his phone number!

It'd have to have something serious wrong with it to not be a no-brainer deal at that price.

Even with something seriously wrong it would be an OK deal.

The table looks near mint, it's a single phase machine. It'll be an R8 taper, so tooling is cheap, and it's small enough to get it into a basement.

Any tooling with?

From my perspective, if I could get to it inside a days drive in each direction, I'd already be on the road. Crank the handles through their travel and take a look at the ways for serious gouges and smooth travel. Listen to the spindle for graunchy noises indicative of blown up bearings. Some backlash on the table feeds is to be expected, should easilly be less than half a turn, but more than that is still something that can be repaired easilly.

I am not a fan of that paint job, but could live with it!:-)

If it gives as good an impression as it does in the pictures, it's been well taken care of, and should give good service.

Cheers Trevor Jones

How easy is it to find parts for millrite?

About the same as for any machine tool that is no longer in production. Almost impossible. Don't let that slow you down though, as most of the things that might be needed are standard hardware like acme threaded leadscrews, nuts and bolts and stuff, while other parts have to be WAY far gone to not be able to salvage them. Accoutrements like table feeds are pretty much universal and adaptable, handwheels can be bought off the shelf (or catalog).

FWIW there was a project on making a riser block for one of these in a recent issue of Home Shop Machinist magazine, where the stated reason for making it was that the part was available but expensive, so there are parts out there.

If being able to order parts for your machine from stock is a concern for you, you are ruling out a whole pile of really good machines, and a lot of the not so good ones. Machine tool makers are not exactly thick on the ground these days.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I really liked mine. The only reason I sold it was that I found a too good to pass up deal on a BP.

These are very nice for a home shop--they don't take up as large a chunk of floor space as a BP. My Millrite was kept in the shop; the BP had to move to the garage.

seems to me that there were two spindle tapers, R8 and something else, but I know no more.

Steve

Alex wrote:

>

The millrite I looked at had a Brown & Sharpe #9 taper.

Eddie

A couple years ago, I found an entire HEAD for a Millrite for a customer. The older worn head is still available I believe.

And they ran it nearly 24-7 for 35 yrs. before it needed work.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

Gunner I'd be interested in that old head. Do you have it, or the customer?

Rex Burkheimer Fort Worth