Hello All,
I was given some advice and told to post my question on this group, so here goes:
I am a drafter/designer by trade and would like to purchase a mill (Bridgeport maybe?) and a lathe to set up in my machine shop at home to do home projects. I have no formal training on running either, but have done some work with a Bridgeport (J series?) mill and some kind of lathe (9"?) at my place of employment. As you can see, I don't know much about them. I figure on spending around $3,000 - $4,000 on a used mill. I am wondering how I know if I'm looking at a decent mill for the money or if I'm looking at something that is completely shot. What kinds of things do I need to look out for? Can I get a CNC for this kind of money or will I just find manual stuff. Are all the spindles for holding the tooling the same size?
Thanks for any input.