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New Mill/Drill Questions

yipsilant

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 23, 2004
Location
Seattle
Hello all,

Some more Mill/Drill Questions: (don’t worry I have use the search function first)

Would a Mill/Drill make a good drill? Or is it all bad? Can any Mill be a Drill Press?

The Plan: Buy a good Mill/Drill ($2000 or less) and use the Mill/Drill until I outgrow its capacity. Then buy a big beautiful Bridgeport (most likely used) which would turn my Mill/Drill into a Drill.

Reasoning: I don’t own a House yet and my tools must be portable (Benchtop) and run on 110 or 220 volt. I know nothing about Machine Tools. This is my first Mill and it should be new. I might not always need a Mill, but I will always need a Drill Press.

Quality: I am a miser with my money and I want to spend it correctly. From what I have read here: Enco, Grizzly, and Harbor Freight are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality and customer service. Jet seems to rise to the top when it comes to customer service. Jet, Enco, Grizzly, and Harbor Freight all sell Chinese Mills. The next best Mill/Drill is Rong Fu from Taiwan. The Rong Fu has a better constructed Column (dovetail). The Lathemaster RF-45 clone could be an option, but it is made in China (Anhui GuiChi Tongyong Machine Works). From here we go to Mill only machines.

Prazi/Wabeco Mills are made in Germany starting price is around $2500 (maybe)
Rockwell is USA made, but I need to buy new for my first mill.
Wells-Index is USA made, but most likely beyond my budget.
Rusnok/Electro-Mechano is USA made, but starts at $3130 (beyond my budget)
Sherline is USA made, but don’t like the looks/function.
Taig Tools is USA made, but it is too small.

Country of Origin: I would rather not buy from a country that does not have or respect labor laws. That takes China out of the line-up. Taiwan might be a compromise.

The Holy Grail: It looks like I want a Bridgeport the size of a Rong Fu Mill/Drill with Drill features, but not made in China or Taiwan if at all possible.

Use/Projects: I plan to use the Mill for making Air Rifles, Paintball Markers and other toys.

Is there any brand that I missed? Is there a solution for me?

Thank you for reading,

-Matthew

[ 12-29-2004, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: yipsilant ]
 
Once you crack the $2000 range you've cracked Bridgeport territory IMHO.

Now the best machine can't be had for $2000 even, but if you really want a Bpt, then why detour thru the mill-drill territory?

I assume you've used/tried/played with both of them to convince yourself of the differences. If not, don't let your reading be the judge. GO and DO, find some people, shops, or stores that would let you do a test drive. That will solidify an expensive decision in your mind so you can rest peacefully for years to come.

The other thing...assuming you can find a 220v outlet that you can plug into at times (possibly unplug dryer) you can overcome the perceived holdback of 3 phase motors relatively easily. Just make sure you don't get a 575v motor, that makes everything harder (you want a 230/460v motor).

One more consideration. I think the mill/drills weigh about 700 lbs (correct me if wrong) and the Bpt is an even 2000#. Moving this stuff isn't for people, there are some specialized tools which make the job easier. You'll need some experienced friends or some riggers or some more research.

Back to Bpt...everybody seems to want a power feed, DRO and 49" table to come with the machine.

I only want good ways, ideally chromed, a table that's not drilled full of holes, and a head that doesn't sound like a lemon grinder. I would not hesitate to buy a 32" table because you'll find a way around it...might change that if you are thinking of working on V8 cylinder heads, tho.

The DRO and power feed can come as you save more cash.

-Matt
 
FWIW: A buddy of mine was hell-bent on getting started in home shop machining. Several of us who have had many years' machine shop experience told him to wait and we would find him some good used US Made machine tools. The guy would not wait and wound up buying Chinese built lathe & mill/drill from ENCO. I had never had too much use for the Chinese built machine tools. I have seen a few in working shops, but they never impressed me. What I found with the ENCO Chinese-built machine tools at my friend's house went beyond BAD. POS would be an overstatement. My buddy had bought himself a 12" x 36" geared head engine lathe, very light duty, and a box-column mill/drill. He called me up to help him get started. The first thing we found was the four-sided toolpost on the lathe was virtually useless. I suggested he buy a Phase II "Aloris" type toolpost. That created the first real job for the mill/drill- machining the "tongue strip" or tee-block for the toolpost to fit the lathe's compound. It was my first experience working on one of the Chinese Mill/Drills. My first attempt was to tram the head and get it squared to the table. Being a box-column machine,the head is only adjustable "right to left" not front-to-back. I put an indicator in the spindle and attempted to tram (square) the spindle to the table. It didn't happen after 45 minutes. The best I could get things was +/- 0.003" Left-to-Right and was stuck with +/- 0.006" front to back. I then put the vise on the table and indicated it. X-Y feeds and micrometer collars proved reasonably accurate. Depth of cut on these machines is set by lowering the quill. This is done via a handwheel/worm drive to the pinion and rack on the quill. There is a micrometer collar, but you need a hex-key to adjust it to zero. It is no system for any accurate depth of cut with a lot of backlash and sudden movement of the quill. I wound up using a dial indicator to get my depth of cut. We did mill out the tee block, and the machine cut within 0.001" in about 2 1/2" for taper. Wehad to takk off 0.291" per side x 0.250" deep. Not having any real chance of repeatability on depth of cut, we set quill depth at 0.250" by dial indicator. We ran a 1/2" HSS four flute endmill and took cuts off the side of the cutter, 0.250" deep x 0.100" in. These would be hogging cuts for a light mill. With the quill sucked in fairly tight and everything locked up, the mill handled the hogging cuts with surprisingly little vibration & reasonable surface finish. No real chatter marks. I took "spring cuts" to see what kind of flex was inherent in this mill/drill. From the chip on the spring cuts and miking things, there was about 0.005" of spring int he machine. We took a fly cutter to clean up the top of the tee block, and this meant moving the head up the column. Of course, as soon as you go to change the head's position on the column, you lose any tramming (squareness) of the head. Ran the head where it was, with a 2 1/2" fly cutter and HSS toolbit. Got a good finish skimming off the top of the tee block.

There was a real bad "feel" to the overall machine- lockscrews for the table gibs and head looked like something cobbed up out of old bolts found in a coffee-can in some guy's junk. Micrometer collars were inconsistent- some had thumbscrews, some didn't. Fit/feel of table feed screws was lousy. Table had cast-in tee slots, un-machined. Head casting is mounted on a swivel to allow it to be angled left-to-right. The head is locked to the swivel by means of three studs with nylon locking nuts and split-lock washers. If you loosen the head to tram it in, you have to contend with the split-lock washers, so have to back off the nuts a bit in order to get things to where the head can be "bumped" (with heel of your hand or block of wood and a hammer) to tweak it into tram. You wind up with a slight angularity of the head adainst the swivel plate (checked this with a feeler). You sock up the lock nuts when you think you have the head trammed right-to-left and lose what you had. The only way I can see to really correct the out-of-square on the front-to-back tram is to take the column off the machine base and scrape things in. Using the machine, I found it to be a clumsy machine with a bad overall feel to it. A machine straight out of the box which is touted as a "Mill/Drill" should be reasonably accurate. It is far from that unless you use dial indicators to determine your table movements and depths of cut. For what this machine is, I wouldn;t waste the time or effort on rescraping or refitting anything.

My buddy is a country boy, used to working rough on stuff like hit-n-miss gas engines and old tractors. He has set a goal of building a model steam engine. I think the mill/drill simply is not going to give him the accuracy for working on small model engine parts. It may be fine for making stuff for hit-n-miss engines. For the finer work on his model steam engine, I know he will be at my house, doing it on my Bridgeport mill or Southbend heavy 10" lathe.

I do not know what he spent for the machine tools, but he said it was around 4 grand for the lathe and the mill/drill and some accessory package. MSC shows this same Mill/Drill as their model RF-45, a 1 1/2 HP geared head mill/drill with box column. MSC's current catalog price for this machine is 2600.00 ! Do yourself a favor and hunt up a used Clausing or Rockwell mill. I am familiar with these machines. They can be moved in a car trunk or SUV, and will fit nicely into a small shop. These are knee type milling machines and much better built all around. The design of a mill/drill simply is not a good design for a vertical mill. It is a glorified drill press and will never be any kind of good milling machine. The rigidity and repeatability required of a milling machine- even a light duty machine like a small Rockwell- are simply not there in a Mill/Drill. Even if you buy a used ROckwell or Clausing small vertical mill, you will be getting a machine which you can do some real work upon with a whole lot less aggravation and for a whole lot less money. My experience with the Chinese Enco Lathe was almost a repeat of the experience with the mill/drill. I would NOT recommend ENCO's machine tools to anyone for any purpose.

Joe Michaels
 
It's been my experience that anyone asking about mill/drills versus vertical mills has already gone through the elaborate rationalization that leads to purchasing a mill/drill.

That being the case, I won't spend ten minutes typing out all of my bad experiences with the mill/drill. Recommendation from a former unhappy owner of a large mill drill:

just say no.
 
Joe is right on. We have a grizzly 3 in 1 machine at work in the maintenance shop that we use to fab simple parts and assembly jigs. We don't need anything very precise and it's a good thing. This machine is a real pain to get to work correctly. It needs constant readjustment to do anything correctly. I have looked at some of the other mills and lathes at Harbor Freight and wonder how in the world people make model engines and such with them.

I too was ready to jump feet first into setting up a home shop to make parts for my motorcycles and but after looking closely at the small import machines I decided to wait.

I have seen some smaller size mills like Clausing, Rockwell and others that would do a better job than the little imported machines. I missed one on ebay a while back that was very nice and fairly small that would be perfect for you. Only sold for $500. You will need to look constantly and be patient but something will turn up.

Size isn't a problem for me so I waited and waited some more and found a nice old round ram J-Head Bridgeport that is tight as a tick and runs sweet for $600 tooling included!
 
I just got a Bridgeport, was originally planning to get a Jet- having heard some bad stuff about Grizzly (a couple examples of various bearings bad from day 1 and stories of shear pins that didn't). But while I was at the machine dealer, a little birdy landed on my shoulder and pointed me in the direction of a nice 32" table Bridgeport- which I ended up getting instead.

I've done a bit of work on my dad's milldrill (generic round column unit), and the Bridgeport is very much another thing entirely. I'm pretty much a newbie, but even to my inexperienced eye it is an altogether higher quality vastly more capable tool I'm glad I got the machine, its just a pleasure to use.

That said, if you do go the used US iron route, make sure of the ways & bearings. Its easy to find beat up examples, and some of them look good despite being a mess. I took the machine tool dealer route. I didn't get a super deal, but it was fair - and they were honest and right up front about what was good and bad with the machine. If you don't need power feeds and dro you can get stuff cheaper. Be wary of ebay for machine tools, you really need a detailed examination of the ways and mechanics, which is often not given in the listings.

A milldrill makes an OK-ish drill press, but lacks much of the convienence of one. Its a lot stiffer, but you don't get the table with holes in it, so you always have to block stuff up if you want to drill thru. A floor model drill press also has a lot more height capacity than a milldrill, and its lots faster to move the drill press table up and down.

$2k gets you into the low end of machine tool dealer Bridgeports. That was pretty much what I was wanting to spend as well, but finding that Bridgeport put me in a position to decide on what I really wanted to do. So it did cost more ($3200), but now I have a machine that its unlikely I'll ever outgrow or be disappointed by.

But, lacking the space for a Bridgeport, I guess I'd go for a drill press I didn't hate. Later on when you have some kind of long-term space for a shop, then it would be time for the big machine.

Gregm
 
I've had generally good service from my mill/drill (a Harbor Freight 33686 model round column mill). I understand some of your reasoning about buying 1) something you can afford 2) a machine that you can move, if need be, by yourself and 3) is new, not used. I had to deal with all of these issues and what I could put in the space that I had for my shop: 9' x 12'. Considering all of these issues I believe that a mill drill is an excellent choice. I know that it can be used to make model engines, because that is what I use mine for. I know less about making parts for air rifles and paint ball markers, but given the precision required for making the models I machine, I would not think it would be that difficult to make such things.

There are differences between machines and I would not necessarily recommend the HF version unless your budget is limited. The RF versions do appear to be of a generally higher quality level, at least the paint job was nicer on the one I saw. But, my machine, after some tweakings, is quite accurate and a solid performer. I have added a DRO and a power feed on the x axis and have recently upgraded the motor to a 3 phase model with a VFD. There is one thing to be said for the belt drive model mill/drills and that is that they are simple to maintain and very smooth in operation. Round column mills are somewhat out of favor although this has not been such an issue with the things I make. It can take more time on some operations, but this is a hobby for me so the time element is not so critical.

As far as buying a Chinese made machine goes, I guess you don't do much shopping at Walmart, Target or K-mart these days, because much of what I see in these stores (and many others) is made by the same labor that makes mill/drills. If you only shop at Saks and Williams Sonoma then this may not be much of an issue. BTW, I also like to ask what the orgin is of the petroleum that is used in the gasoline I buy. I avoid the stuff from places like Iran and Algeria (too many terrorists).
 
I needed a drill press and found a little used round column mill/drill at Yale University. It was an ENCO. The primary operator was the office secratery. It still had the cosmoline on it (they didn't know enough to remove it!)

Payed $300. Good drill press. BAD MILL!!!!!!!!!!

The X-Y axis was out of square buy .015" in 6".

Trued up the saddle on my early 1900's Hendey shaper. Didn't have a Bridgeport at that time. It is now an even better drill press but still just a marginal mill.

If you buy a round column mill/drill; it is a VERY MARGINAL mill.

I like my Bridgeport.

Pete
 
$2,000 is a good start to a nice machine, a mill/drill is not a universal machine it's on the hobby level. I have HF Mill/Drill for small projects and for my brother to come over and use.
I use a knee mill for a great deal of my work, check out my avatar.

Jerry
 
Thank you all for your detailed responses.
I am really impressed with the Machining Community and how they help each other out.

Things you should keep in mind:

I don’t own a home yet, which means that I can only use 110 or 220 volt power. I have a friend that can help me pull 220 if needed. In addition, the Mill needs to stay under 1000 pounds, so that two people can easily move the mill around.

Remember I don’t know sh!t about machine tools. Buying a used Mill is very scary for me. What I need to do is make friends with Boeing Machinists. My Father was Systems Analyst at Boeing for 30 years and for some reason he has no Machinist friends.

Have I used any Mill yet? The answer is no. My Family has a lot of wood working machines, but no metal machines. I don’t have a car, so getting to Kent (Boeing Surplus) or Bellingham (Grizzly) is not that easy. There should be a store near Seattle, but I have not found it yet.

I can conclude, people that use Mills on a daily basis would buy a used USA Mill. The Hobbyist is willing to deal with a Chinese/Taiwan Mill.

I think you guys have convinced me to get a good used USA Mill. Now I need to narrow down my choices.

Rockwell is my first choice so far. Model 21-122 with R8 spindle this is a Horizontal/Vertical Combo Mill. Just imagine the metal you could move with this machine. Take a look at the bottom of the page:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/rockwellmillers/page2.html

Clausing maybe if the Rockwell falls through. Does not have R8 spindle
Rusnok/Electro-Mechano if I can find one used, but uses Type 100 Collets
Wells-Index if it is small enough. What models should I look for?

Are there any other Models that I should be looking out for?

Mflywheel you are correct, Model Steam Engine, Air Rifle, Gunsmith, and Paintball Marker can be all in the same project group.

Thanks again for the great information.

-Matthew Konecke
 
Matt, just one more thing ...

Seems like most people wanting to get into machining are most intimidated by moving the machinery. As well they should - it's tricky, dangerous work, not to be undertaken casually or after having a couple of beers.

But all of us (or most of us) have moved our machinery by ourselves, from time to time. There are many techniques and lots of suggestions for doing this, start reading up on it while you're looking for that perfect Rockwell.

And check up on what your local rental yard has in the way of engine hoists, porta-cranes, pallet jacks and so forth. Plan ahead and the move will go smoothly and economically.
 
I do not see how you can avoid dealing with moving machinery if you buy either a mill/drill or a Rockwell or Clausing knee-type vertical mill. The Enco box-column mill drill I wrote about is listed as having a shipping weight of 800 lbs. If you bought just the mill/drill, you would have to build a stout workbench or stand for it as well as getting the mill/drill up onto it. It is inevitable you will need either an automotive engine hoist or something you can tig up yourself like a chain hoist hung from the overhead.

Taking a mill/drill apart to reduce it into lighter sub-assemblies may not be a real good option. While the box-column mill/drill is put together with bolted connections between the column and bed and between head and column saddle, I would not recommend breaking apart these joints. They should be fitted- if you break things apart to get the machine into components that are manageable, you risk taking out whatever accuracy may have been there. From what I saw of the design and workmanship on that Box-column Mill/Drill, it looked like if you took things apart, you might be awhile playing with dial indicators, bluing, scraping and stoning to get things back together with any kind of accuracy in the assembled machine tool. In truth, you would be doing the mill/drill a favor and making it more accurate than when it left the factory.

I have seen the little Rockwell or Clausing knee-type vertical mills. These machines can be dismantled for moving fairly easily. They are well made, with properly fitted parts. They can be adjusted and trammed like any other real milling machine, so dismantling and loss of accuracy is not an issue. The weight of a Rockwell or similar mill is something to take seriously. However, with some forethought and care, you should be able to move and set up a mill in your shop. I do not know what your vehicle situation and shop are like. A Rockwell or Clausing light knee type mill can be dismantled easily to the point where you should be able to move it in a car trunk (with the open lid lashed down). If you have an SUV, you are home free. 20 years ago, I brought a SOuthbend Heavy 10" cabinet base lathe home in pieces in a Ford Bronco with the rear seat folded out of the way. Dismantled, the basic lathe- consisting of bed/headstock/quickchange box and apron- was the heaviest part. I had help to unload it using planks to slide the bed/headstock/apron assembly onto a dolly, then slid things down planks into the basement of our old home. I was on my own from there. I lag-screwed a 2 x 6 accross a few of the first floor joists close to a foundation wall. I then hung a chain hoist to pick the bed/headstock/apron assembly and landed them on the cabinet base. Assembled, a Southbend heavy 10" lathe is around 1000 lbs. Got things together and then moved the lathe accorss the basement to where it needed to go. That lathe has made two household moves with us and I still use it. If you take reasonable care and do some degree of planning and preparing, you will be able to move a milling machine such as a Rockwell mill into your shop & set it up. I think Dave Ficken, of Meridian Machinery, had an article on his website, "Advice on buying a used mill". You might find the article useful if you can hunt it down. If you are going to have home shop machine tools, may as well learn how they are put together and how to adjust and maintain them. It is part and parcel with running machine tools.

Joe Michaels
 
One thing to consider with the Rockwells and Clausings is the spare parts situation. If something is broken- or worse, you break something while learning, then you may either be out of luck for an indeterminate period or stuck with very expensive replacements.

Bridgeport parts are really easy to come by- likewise with South Bend or Logan lathes. Unfortunately, Bridgeports don't come in a 1000lb variant.

The other thing is tooling- it is expensive to tool up from scratch and much more so if you have an obsolete taper to deal with. MT and R8 are easy enough to come by, but some of the others can get a bit obscure.

This isnt' to say the Rockwell/Clausing route is a bad idea, they sound like great machines at a nice size- but there are always tradeoffs.

Gregm
 
I have to first off proclaim that I have a real dislike for the bottom of the barrel Asian import machinery. True there are good ones, but these are mostly industrial machines. Look at the price difference between a Harbor Freight
B-port clone, and a Sharpe or high end B-port clone, and you'll find it to be thousands of dollars. So this tells me they're skimping some where as often they're all made in the same sweatshops.

I don't think that you'll find too many top of the line import machines in the hobbiest bracket. From what I understand, the importers specify a type of machine and finish that they want, and from the Rong Fu, to the Harbor Frieght they're all made from the same patterns and to the same dimensions. The difference is that some may spec a better quality machine. From what's been said on this board in the past is that Grizzley seems to be the best, then Enco, then Harbor Frieght, in both the fit and finish, and coustomer service bracket.

None the less, the problem I faced with my old mill drill was not only was it a flopy wimpy POS, but the metalurgy seemed to be dependant on what ever junk got tossed in the pot was what the machine was made of. Hence my dissaponintment 2months later when the axis nut stripped out, as the bronze nut may've held up better had it been made of hardened Yellow and orange Playdough :( !. If you do want to go for the whole mill drill concept, I strongly suggest like you've been saying to go for the dovetailed collumns. I've never actually used one, but the round collumn stank so bad that it was almost impossible to use. There's nothing like cranking up and down the table when you want need to and not loosing your X/Y position. As Joe outlined another problem is you controll your depth by lowering the quill. Well this means the deaper you mill the less rigity you have. Also Joe talked about the Tram of the mill. This is a real problem, as those collums are rarely 90degrees vertical to the table. On my Cinncinatti, or on a Bridgeport clone or the likes this isn't a problem, as the head is made to swivel, and you just align it, but on a mill drill you can't swivle the head or anything.

While I live in an area with a lot of Surplus machinery, and avoid chineese imports like the Plague, if I had to buy one, I think from what I've heard, Grizzley while they often come with problems has the best coustomer service, and will correct any flaws. If this is the route you chose to take, I suggest buying this mill. http://www.grizzly.com/products/item.cfm?itemnumber=G3102&&gid=931C3A8C-17EF-47C2-A5BF-F77D16BC3734&site=grizzly . For an extra $300, and almost 400 more pounds then a dovetailled mill drill, I think you'll be much happier. While I've never actually seen one, I know how bad those mill drills are, and how much nicer a knee would be to get. IF you like it, it may very well last you the rest of your life. You could easily attach later on power feeds, as well as a DRO later on as time permits. Looking at it, it even seems to be almost a Rockwell clone of some sort.

Adam
 
I very nearly bought the G3102 you mention. I went to Grizzly's showroom in Pennsylvania to have a look at it. Its a nice looking machine, quite a bit nicer than the mill drills I've seen in Harbor Freight locations. The feeds felt pretty much like a milldrill's, but not bad. The adjustable Clausing-like head is nice compared to the generic mill-drills.

Definitely an upgrade from a regular mill drill, but I think its less suited for drilling than a plain old round column mill drill. The knee travel is a bit on the small side and so is the quill travel so I'd put this in the fancy mill drill department, but not really in the milling machine department.

It is kind of a bunch of money though. Given the tradeoff that a mill drill forces, I guess I'd still come down on the side of a good quality plain old drill press of some useful size- you can put that to use right away- and wait for that Clausing/Rockwell/Bridgeport to come along with your name on it. But if you can't stand the wait, theres always the inexpensive sub $1000 milldrills you can get knowing they're not what you really want, but you won't be sinking a load of money into them either.

Gregm
 
Thanks for all of your responses. Now, all I need to find is a Mill. It will be fun to look, and great to find.

Happy New Year

-Matthew Konecke
 
I can't find the link right this minute, but there's a near bridgeport sized import SQUARE column for about 1300 or 1500 ...

if that had come out even a DAY before I bought my bridgeport, I would have been ALL over it.

I've posted the link in here before.

jeffe
 
Joe Michaels' post above relates to a square column mill/drill. Apparently the performance is still unremarkable when compared to a conventional vertical mill.
 
Well I am for one surprised at Joe's expierence. I have the square column mill drill from wholesale tools, cost 1395.00. I have built small steam engines with it and my 12x36 gear head grizzly lathe. They all work and I had no problems holding the tolerances needed. One example below:

PMRModel1.jpg



Guess everyones mileage will vary.

Paul Hiers in NE Ohio
 








 
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