Clarke Micro Mill

I got the same model from Chester (spit) a couple of years or so ago, called the Cobra mill. I ain't no machine shop expert, but I'm pleased with it. I was orignally thinking (as most newbies probaby do) about some sort of lathe/mill combo machine, but a mate suggested this little mill was worth looking at because it has a dovetailed column - reckoned I'd be better with that than some sort of compromise bolted onto a lathe.

It's surprisingly capable - I've milled 6mm slots in 15mm thick mild steel (several passes, cutting about 2mm deep each time) - but you can blow fuses if you overdo it and the tool digs in (buy a pack of spares before you settle down to play with it). The leadscrews are metric, and the scales on the handles seem pretty accurate. I had to fiddle and fettle a bit to take up the small amount of backlash on the X-Y slides. (When I first got it, I pulled the table apart, lubricated it all, and then spent time adjusting the gibs as well as the backlash.) I think I may have put some shim between the handwheels and the cheek block thingies.

The dovetail column seems to work really well - drilling and countersinking, with the head changing height in between, seems to be no problem. I may not have the adjustment right, but I get a little vertical play in the quill unless I clamp it (never had the quill assembly apart). There is some scope for movement of the head relative to the table, say if you put weight on the head, and I think this means that you have to be careful not to take too adventurous a cut - if you work it too hard, I guess things might move around a little. It's fine with brass and ally, but I take my time (and squirt Molyslip around) when I'm doing steel, just in case.

The main consideration, perhaps, is the size of the table, but it does have a pretty good range of movement, and seems to stay slop-free over most of that. My machiney mate seemed suitably impressed with it - said it was "a real one, just ickle".

Get a set of the MT2 collets to go with it - for milling, the chuck is somewhere between a bit iffy and near-useless. I keep a 6" length of 1x3/4" brass bar to tap the top of the drawbar when changing tools/collets.

An issue with these seems to be sets of clamps - my mill only came with 4 T-nuts (tapped for M6 studs), and that was it. I haven't found clamps for it yet. I made a few more T-nuts, and bought a couple of sets of parallel clamps from Machine Mart for about 6 quid a set. Those, my home-made T-nuts, a bunch of M6 screws of various lengths, and assorted bits of bar picked out of the scrap bin as needed, seem to have worked fine as a set of clamps - I've never had anything move once I got the 'vice mentality' out of my head. I think Chronos do sets of 5/16" clamps, but I've never bothered to see if the T-nuts with those would fit the Micro mill's slots (although I am doubtful).

I would describe it as a mill-shaped version of the 7x12 mini lathe - cheap, cheerful, and surprisingly able if you do a bit of tweaking. 240 quid looks like a good price - mine was about 320-ish, inc vat, two years ago, and I have no regrets.

Wally,

Thank you for this advice. I much appreciate your taking the time to give such a comprehensive reply. HS

No problem, :-)