Thread: any recommendations re milling machine

I am going to be in need of a mill to cut dovetails, face slides etc. Won't be doing a lot, but too much to do it by hand. Any suggestions for an affordable mill would be appreciated.

btw, all work will be on 1911's.

Thanks

A Bridgeport or any of the clones in good condition with a 32'' table should be more than enough for your needs and be available at reasonable cost if you have the space and funds for a machine that size.
I did not like my mill/drill, for a little more I got a Bridgeport clone.

Check the Grizzly catalog. They carry some smaller knee mills that should do nicely. If you know someone who inspect a used machine properly, there are usually some good buys on the used market. Just don't buy a worn out, junker Bridgeport or equivalent because of the name. For your purposes, a new imported knee mill from a well know importer like Grizzly or Jet is fine. A mill-drill will do what you are currently interested in, but they are inconvenient to use and most are crudely made.

RWO

wow, quick response, thanks. Delta', could you perhaps define "reasonable cost"?

Griz & Jet, ok. Will either or both accept dovetail cutters? I don't see any specs regarding the size chuck required. Is this because there is an industry standard?

Thanks for the help guys. It is very much appreciated.

The best is a bridgeport mill
But it take a lot of space and cost
You find a small mill will do most of your work just as good a big mill and take less space also less effort than a big mill

I have 2 Bridgeports and they have the 42" table. Try to stay with the longer table. You will need it to do some of the stock work. I got a decent deal on mine as I bought a complete machine shop, but you are paying a lot for the Bridgeport name. Kinda like a Honda or Toyota. They are excellent, but command a big price.
Butch

A bridgeport isn't a bad machine (I have a 9x42 bridgeport in my basement), but it's neither the best (Deckel anyone?) nor the cheapest. Just versatile, which isn't particularly useful for most gunsmithing.I recommend a bridgeport-type mill, just because it's large enough to take heavy cuts, but small enough to be easy for small and light work. A rule of thumb with milling machines is you want the biggest, heaviest machine you can afford to put in your shop (don't forget the cost of moving). The heavier the machine, the better it will cut.

Originally Posted by rdstrain49

Griz & Jet, ok. Will either or both accept dovetail cutters? I don't see any specs regarding the size chuck required. Is this because there is an industry standard?

You might want to do a little bit of research into milling techniques and toolholding methods. You do not hold a dovetail cutter in a chuck. You should be using a collet. Look at the spindle taper spec for the mill, and this will tell you the toolholding method it uses. Stay away from Brown and Sharpe and Morse taper spindles. Stick with R8-- it will keep your tooling costs down.

Most knee mills of the size you are looking at come with an R8 taper, which means you can hold tools with shanks up to 7/8" in a collet (and larger with an endmill holder). Which is fine, considering you will probably never use a dovetail cutter bigger than 1.375", and most of those have 5/8" or 1/2" shanks.

Stay away from mill/drills. They are small, flimsy, and are pains to setup (especially those with round columns). Any mill that requires you to set z depth with the quill is suspect, in my book. Quills are for drilling, not milling.

I have R8 and morse taper
They both do will If look around you will find both are about the same price
If you are into making tooling the you will find morse works the best
You need to look at space and cost for your shop
My shop is same so sold the big mill for space in the shop and just use a small mill with morse taper and found works just as good for most jobs over the big one with less space and use the tooling off the drill press.

Dave

A small mill will do that type of work, but if you have a license you should consider a CNC mill such as the Southwestern Industries mill. It will allow you to do things such as fish scale gripping areas and make custom accessories such as sights, triggers, etc. The cnc would allow you to do those jobs quick enough that you could make a profit if you can keep it busy. You could do much of the same work with a manual mill but you could never make a profit because of the time it would take.

I'm in the process of looking for equipment to stock a complete gunsmith shop and seriously considering the Sharp machine it advertises .0002 tolerance. Prior experience in various use of tools it's easier to make big work on small than the other way around get the biggest your budget can afford and you have space for.

Originally Posted by Halcohead

A bridgeport isn't a bad machine (I have a 9x42 bridgeport in my basement), but it's neither the best (Deckel anyone?) nor the cheapest. Just versatile, which isn't particularly useful for most gunsmithing.

A Deckel might be better in quality, I never saw one in person, but I can't see that the design is any more practical than a Bridgeport. From what I've read, the Deckel is great for odd milling tasks... provided you have numerous large and expensive Deckel-specific accessories to go with the basic machine. I guess one Bridgeport and one Deckel would be a great combination. But I'll take a Bridgeport for getting most jobs done with minimum setup time and cheap generic accessories only.

A rule of thumb with milling machines is you want the biggest, heaviest machine you can afford to put in your shop (don't forget the cost of moving). The heavier the machine, the better it will cut.

Maybe you mean, up to Bridgeport size? I think for gunsmithing there is a point where a mill gets to be too big, and the improvement in rigidity is not worth the price in unhandiness. Much of gunsmithing (and many other types of work) consists of making various holes... drilled holes, reamed holes, tapped holes, bored holes... and that is where a Bridgeport with its movable and rather sensitive quill beats the pants off of the biggest and best mills without a movable quill.

Originally Posted by Fuzzbean

A Deckel might be better in quality, I never saw one in person, but I can't see that the design is any more practical than a Bridgeport. From what I've read, the Deckel is great for odd milling tasks... provided you have numerous large and expensive Deckel-specific accessories to go with the basic machine. I guess one Bridgeport and one Deckel would be a great combination. But I'll take a Bridgeport for getting most jobs done with minimum setup time and cheap generic accessories only.




Maybe you mean, up to Bridgeport size? I think for gunsmithing there is a point where a mill gets to be too big, and the improvement in rigidity is not worth the price in unhandiness. Much of gunsmithing (and many other types of work) consists of making various holes... drilled holes, reamed holes, tapped holes, bored holes... and that is where a Bridgeport with its movable and rather sensitive quill beats the pants off of the biggest and best mills without a movable quill.

If you have ever run a big mill it is a lot of work
working with mill .0002 tolerance make the mill hard to move
To make the mill less work losing up the jibs with a fit of .002 fit
You will find most mill in machine shop have at less .005 fit for speed.
If I need to hold .0002 tolerance I just use the locks for a closer fit
This works on any size mill with the work
I have work on mill with up to 144" stoke the machine weight was 30 tons lot of work no need for a jim on that day.
Today I use a table top mill and still can hold .0005 tolerance more need for gunsmithing
Even on the south bend lathe made in 1949 I can hold a .0001 tolerance.


Dave

I have been following this thread and want to chime in here. For a new shop going in I would look very strongly at a good used CNC Milling Center (Haas, has a very easy control to use with a lot of canned functions built into it.). They are heavy, very accurate and very easy to do tight work with.

We seldom use our manual mill unless the CNC is in production. But when it is not in prouction, it is easier to use than the manual and I find my self waiting for an open time on the CNC. It has a great DRO in the control and all the axis are motor driven. You can dial in the 0.0001" cuts that you want to make, it will drill and tap better than most people, tool changes are fast and easy. etc. but since this is the machine that I use every day, I find it hard to go on a manual mill anymore. However I don't have a rotating head or a head that swivels so I have had to figure out other was of achieving the same cuts. Programming will allow me to do a lot of things that I can't do on the manual mill.

While I was a the SHOT Show a couple of weeks ago I noticed a real shift in firearms with an awful lot of milling work on metal chassis (used to be called stocks) sight mountings, grips, forearms, etc.

This is a major shift in the work that we will be doing in the future. The normal CNC shop runs at a tolerance level that we can all benefit from, whether it is one off or a thousand. We all do many of the same function over and over. Let me give an exaple:

I do quiet a few TC Contender barrels so must cut a lot of dovetail slots for the forearm.

I now just load the barrel in a set of softjaws that I keep for the job, it orients the barrel to the frame via the Hinge bar,

I set the X zero on the breech end of the barrel the Y zero off the Hinge bar and the Z zero of the barrel, load the program and make sure I have the right tooling in the 16 tool changer and they are zeroed, which I do when I load every tool to a set height, reload the program and get the dovetail properly cut each time. It takes less time to do than to write about it.

Software.
There are very good CNC packages that are quiet inexpensive, some Shareware Freeware programs are better than some of the so called entry level commercial programs. I never program on the machine that take machine time that should e used to make income. I do all my programming on a PC and download my GCode to the Mill or Lathe as needed. I believe that remote proramming saves crashes but you do need to remember where your vises, etc are on the table.

I use a mid-level application called SurfCam Velocity 2 1/2D with Lathe Option but that is because we do a lot of other work besides gun work and while it was not as expensive as some it was more than what most of manual Mills would cost. My CNC Mill is a Haas VF-0 with a 4th axis and I need a VF2 or VF3 for the table length but like you I use what I have and make it work.

JMHO

Lowell

You guys working to .0001? I take issue with that. You may fool a few of the inexperienced, but not anybody that has worked in the shop for a few years.
Butch

One of the big advantages of a Deckel style mill over a knee or base type mill is that the actual table is vertical, and that allows you to rigidly mount a barrel (or anything else) vertically for cutting extractor grooves and the like.

The horizontal tables on deckel type mills are interchangeable sub tables.

Yes, there are expensive and apparently highly adictive accessories for Deckel type mills, but the cheap and cheerful bodges for a Bridgeport still work on a Deckel type mill too.

Butch,

I didn't say I was working to 0.0001, I said you could dial it in with you control. You may or may not be able to cut that fine depending on your machine, material, setup and tooling and you may not be able to measure it if you did in most shops.

Lowell

Thanks Lowell,
I put a piece of metal on my surface grinder from time to time and try very hard to get a repeatable measurement on the part. I don't try taking too much time measuring a thin piece, but will put a larger piece on my surface plate and a height gage and either an interapid indicator or a B&S. I can get to .0003, but with my shop that is best that I can do. As you said, too many variables. Ultra close tolerance parts can be made, but not in a normal manual or CNC shop.
Butch

I'd probably stick to a Bridgeport type mill. I wouldn't go the CNC route, unless a combination Manual/CNC type mill came my way cheap. Most of the import mill are probably of good quality. The main concern would be condition of the ways. For you, I wouldn't get wrapped up into table size etc. I'd look at what is avialble in your area, conditon, price and accesories that come with it. DROs are nice, but for just cutting dovetails and milling things flat, then not nessesary. Of course if you find a mill that has a DRO on it for a reasonable price, then consider it. I might shy away from Enco stuff, but then again they might be OK.
There are some other mills, like the Clausing, Hardinge, Rusnok and probably others, that might fill the bill.
Tom

Originally Posted by Alpacca Fortyfive

One of the big advantages of a Deckel style mill over a knee or base type mill is that the actual table is vertical, and that allows you to rigidly mount a barrel (or anything else) vertically for cutting extractor grooves and the like.

Well on a Bridgeport you can swing the turret and hang your barrel vertically off the edge of the table to cut extractor grooves. Or pick up a right-angle head off eBay. Probably cheaper than a Deckel sub-table or whatever... and more common.

In the context of the original question, the suggestion to get a full-blown machining center seems a bit outrageous to me. I think if we can talk the guy up to a used Bridgeport clone we are doing good.

I worked in a R&D shop for about 10 months in a situation where we had a CNC bed mill (which I did love for many purposes) and a couple enclosed machining centers (which were almost always a pain) but no Bridgeport. I was just pulling my hair out... fiddling around with tool registers or whatever just to drill a simple hole... it was for the birds. Another place I worked had what resembled a Bridgeport, with a MillPWR control that would have been dandy in 2-axis mode, but there was no manual quill on that mill. The Z axis was CNC only. I hated that machine with a passion. In my opinion a 2-axis control on a Bridgeport, with full manual operation always an option, is the ideal for most gunsmithing. Straying from that, I'd rather go pure manual than pure CNC. Of course quantity production of anything is another story entirely.