RF 45 or Chinese Knee Mill

Chris truck freight on a machine out of the US might be way more affordable than you think.

I'm in a similar situation in eastern ontario machine availability is almost non-existent unless i go to western ontario or new york

appropriate NON BRIDGEPORT machines (INDEX EXCELLO CINCY) and similar machines can be had reasonably easy

800km of LTL shipping on a machine of about 1.5 tons was about $1K and 100 for brokerage

IN my case i found a gap that let me pick it up for less than 1000 in rental and mileage.

I wound up with a full sized Index model 45 for less than a clausing

8520 or 8530 goes for.

the trick is to avoid paying the "bridgeport tax" I will not call bridgeports bad machines but they have a name premium associated with them at the moment that they dont necessarily deserve and ythat premium and attention actually droves DOWN the price of otherwise excellent non bridgeport machines

Thought i'd mention the other options

Brent Ottawa Canada

Where are you?

The few dealers I have run dealt with, had prices that could be best described as "optimistic". To the extent that I figured I could get two up from the states and resell one to recoup at least the costs of trucking both.

Look at Busy Bee's website. China, not Taiwan, though.

They have pretty good rates on their shipping. Really good. Depending where you are, it may be far cheaper than driving there.

Look at the A1-S clones. B048, or CT054

If you are in BC, you could do to consider a two day trip down to Washington state and buy a machine through Grizzly.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I was in your shoes a couple of years ago and ended up going for a used Clausing 8520, looked long and hard at the RF45 and other China iron and just couldn't do it...

I could have run the machine as is but decided to restore it, that gave me a real appreciation for "older" american iron:

Terry, that's a great looking restoration job, and the intlwaters site photo layout is very good too

WB ......... metalworking projects

Thanks!

Was a labour of love :)

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Chris