A Fundamental Quest about how useful a Universal Mill is

Hello All,

I have been thinking about buying a Universal Mill - Horizontal/vertical
mill with no quill feed.

I wonder how useful a machine like this would be? I would like it to have
a hand/power quill, but very few of these machines seem to be out there.
The Rambaudi UR60 is one example of one.

The spindle speeds never seem to be higher than 1750rpm. So for aluminum or
small hole jobs one would need a spindle speeder. Most speeders that I've seen
don't support large tools.

I don't have a Bridgeport (BP), I've had them for 30years, and finally decided
never again. They are just to weak and poorly designed. That 10" moment arm
from the knuckle to the center-line of the quill is just to piss-poor. Not to
mention the R8 is just to wimpy.

In all the years I owned BP's, I only tilted the head once. It would have been
better if BP had a solid mount in the rear of the machine, and had the knuckle
for those occasional jobs where you would have to move the head.

So my fundamental question is: for those of you who have a universal mill, how many
of you use them more than once or twice a month. Tell me what machine you have and
how often you use it, and do you like the machine you have?

I understand that many of you might have a quasi-universal IE: a horizontal with
a BP style head on the over-arm of the turret. I don't count these machine as
a true 'Universal'. The machines I'm talking about are like the Abene, Ramboudi,
Cinci Toolmaster, Huron, Van Norman, etc.... But if you want to weigh in I'm sure we
would all like to hear what you have to say.

I have a Gorton 1-22 hydraulic profile mill and a Brother TC-22A CNC.

Can't wait to get your inputs,

Best Rgards,

Paul Hoffman

I'll use your word FUNDAMENTAL

The very first (1859) knee and column mill was a true UNIVERSAL - because its table swiveled to enable helical / spiral milling via a gear driven dividing head geared to the table screw

I have a Abene VHF-2B that I hardly use. I got it because when you need a horizontal, you need a horizontal. It has power table feed but none else. It has no quill.

My go to machine is the Southwestern Industries knee mill that looks like it was built by Sharp. The original head was destroyed in a fall and replaced with a BP J head. The reason that it is my go to machine is that it has 2 axis CNC and because of the BP quill. It has higher spindle speeds than the Abene and because of the CNC drive the table has no backlash.

If I had my druthers and had the vertical room and money, a bed mill like a SWI TRAK DPM SX3P, would be my choice. But I would still want a horizontal.

Tom

I basically started out with a Misal Cervinia#2Rn universal horizontal mill. We made do with that for quite a few years, and did a fair amount of repair work, etc, and cut a few gears (including helical) with it. Like you say, it's not real handy to drill holes with, so most hole drilling went onto my pillar drill, which was also equipped with a 2 axis cross slide table. A tapping head is a useful accessory for a drill, or a turret mill, but kind of useless on a horizontal.

My UH mill doesn't get much use any more, something like the shaper, it sits there waiting for just the right job to come along. It is also reasonably easy to get the compound vertical head oriented in such a way that you can drill holes in the ends of long shafts laying 'the long way' on the table. Still, that is all specialty stuff that there is not necessarily a lot of call for.

The horizontal axis is really nice for machining the edge of heavier, scabbier plates, etc so a face mill can be used on it, instead of the side of an endmill. And of course, gear milling is pretty good on there too. If you're really going old school, then you're looking at getting a tool and cutter grinder to keep those old slab mills and horizontal plain mills sharpened. That has to be the biggest factor against using the machine in an old school way: cutter sharpening.

I still think, although the Bridgeports and their clones are kind of delicate, they probably have more usefulness than a UH mill. And a CNC mill is even handier yet if you have a job with more than one or two features on it.

It all depends on what a person uses their machines for, mine are used for a little of everything but not to make a living on.
I told myself 30 or so years ago I'd never spend much on a Bridgeport mill and to this day never owned one. I got broke in on K&Ts and big Cinci's and was occasionally thrown on a Bridgeport, I thought them more of a novelty than a work horse.
My first mill at my shop was a nice Gorton 1-22 mastermill with #30 taper spindle, sold it to make room for a Deckel FP1 that I still have along with a Deckel FP2 I just bought. I find with the power table feeds a power quill is not missed and the rigidity is fine for carving out steel with 1" EMs or for inserted carbide EMs.

I've spent more time on a universal mill this year then any other machine in the shop.


I've got a few jobs lined up for the UH milling machines.... all repair work....

Currently set up for splines in one machine and plasma cut parts are running in a fixture on another....

If you get the multi axis vertical attachment you can mill all sorts of angles , but if your not blocked up high enough on the table you'll run out of travel....

You can run out of vertical travel on the knee when using a standard vertical attachment on a horizontal mill.

I'm currently dealing with this on a repair job..

Currently blocking 3" to 4" just to use the vertical head on one machine.

A 20+ hp horizontal makes quick work out of most anything that you put into it.

(2) 10" Kurt vices or more will fit on a good sized machine. Just set them up and go to work.

I made custom jaws for a job, using those vices set the parts and milled different features with one push of a button.