Chinese milling machine

Feb 12, 2005 2 Replies

Rate this thread:

Paul A Prescott 21 years ago

Does anyone have any exp. of using this pattern of machine, I looked at something like it a few years ago and the quality was terrible.

However I looked at one yesterday and for the money I was very impressed, the machined dovetails etc are all hand scraped and it looks and feels a very tight machine.

There is one on ebay at present :

formatting link

I assume these are finding their way into the UK market too ?

Also is the geared drive a better option that belts ? It is better in terms of the machine being smaller as I don't have a lot of space.

TIA for any feedback

Paul

Vote

Steve 21 years ago

I was told that belt driven machines can produce a better finish and are more forgiving of mishandling by novices (like me!), because the belts can slip rather than destroying the machine or workpiece etc. I can certainly get a nice finish using the side of an end mill, but less so using the end of the mill.

Steve

Vote

Tony Jeffree 21 years ago

The quality of the gearing on the Chinese mills certainly isn't great

- Dick Stephen (the guy that is serialising his CNC conversion of the X3 mill in MEW) reckoned that the original geared head on the X3 had a pretty noisy gearbox. He has replaced the geared head with a home-built head driven with a variable speed DC motor and a toothed belt & pulleys. He reckons that the difference in surface finish is amazing; his main interest is horology, and apparently the finish is so good that the time to finish the parts he makes has been much reduced. Part of the improvement may also be due to him dispensing with a movable quill - his Z travel is now based on using the Z dovetail ways to raise/lower the head.

Regards, Tony

Vote

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required