Comment on various Bridgeport type mills?

I am shopping for a Bridgeport type mill.

I do not think I will ever find an actual Bridgeport, Lagun, or Cincinnati machines in Taiwan however there are various Bridgeport clones made in Taiwan... This is the one I am looking at now (it costs 28,000 NTD before delivery, around 900 dollars):

05177 永進銑床1.5# 中古銑床*中古洗床*铣床*中古機械*二手機械*傳統機械*金正機械 - 露天拍賣





It looks to be a Bridgeport type mill with a variable speed head. I asked the seller about using a VFD and he seems dead set against it, but said I can only use a phase converter (either static or rotary). I don't know why he would be against a VFD, unless there's something that would mess up a VFD in the machine?

Also I have seen a lot of vertical/horizontal combination milling machines and I can't find any information about it whatsoever. Basically it has a spindle in the main casting and you would swivel the ram around where an overarm support is on the other end of the ram. Are they not used much at all or is there something wrong with a vertical and horizontal mill in the same machine?

I will have to get a crane and hoist this machine into an open balcony to get it into my shop...

I mean a phase converter can be weird on certain CNC retrofits and machining centers... but a manual knee mill? Should be nothing at all wrong with running it on a knee mill.

Jon

I have a Sharp mill. It iu a Bridgeport clone. I bought it about 12 yr. ago. I am extremely satisfied with it. Unfortunately I don't know what Taiwanese factory produced it.

When I bought the mill used BP machines that had been badly abused were grossly overprices. For about 30% more than the cost of the used BP I got a new Sharp.

taiwanluthiers said:

I don't know why he would be against a VFD, unless there's something that would mess up a VFD in the machine?

Click to expand...

The only thing I could figure is that it appears to be a variable speed head and they may not like the motor being changed speeds via a VFD. That being said, there isn't a reason why you couldn't run a VFD, set it at 50 or 60 cycles and use the head to change the speeds.

I am even wondering if there is already some kind of an electronic speed change thing inside the head too, otherwise why would there be a fan in the back of the head?

If that's the case it may not like VFDs unless I bypass the electronic completely and hook the VFD directly up to the motor... But then again I don't see any wire leading into the head apart from the motor so it looks like it's easy to bypass whatever's in that big box...

taiwanluthiers said:

I am shopping for a Bridgeport type mill.

I do not think I will ever find an actual Bridgeport, Lagun, or Cincinnati machines in Taiwan however there are various Bridgeport clones made in Taiwan... This is the one I am looking at now (it costs 28,000 NTD before delivery, around 900 dollars):

05177 永進銑床1.5# 中古銑床*中古洗床*铣床*中古機械*二手機械*傳統機械*金正機械 - 露天拍賣

View attachment 252593

View attachment 252594

It looks to be a Bridgeport type mill with a variable speed head. I asked the seller about using a VFD and he seems dead set against it, but said I can only use a phase converter (either static or rotary). I don't know why he would be against a VFD, unless there's something that would mess up a VFD in the machine?

Also I have seen a lot of vertical/horizontal combination milling machines and I can't find any information about it whatsoever. Basically it has a spindle in the main casting and you would swivel the ram around where an overarm support is on the other end of the ram. Are they not used much at all or is there something wrong with a vertical and horizontal mill in the same machine?

I will have to get a crane and hoist this machine into an open balcony to get it into my shop...

Click to expand...

I suggest that before you make up your mind on what machine to buy, you look at Hangzhou Milling Machine Manufacturing Co. LTD. Specifically Model X5325C It is excellent and it has many more features than the one you have shown. I have owned the same machine since 2004. I bought it factory equipped with a SINO 3 axis DRO and the machine and DRO has been flawless. I bought it directly from the factory. Avoid dealers, they add no value.

How much was that machine new? I’m thinking it’s goimg to be at least 3000 dollars if not more.

I don’t have a whole lot of money for budget and at around 1000 dollars all they have are machines that make Seig X2 look like a Bridgeport, that is to say nobody uses mini mills in Taiwan because people don’t machine stuff for fun like Americans do and anything smaller than a Bridgeport is useless for work.

Because there are so many tool and die shops those Bridgeport type mills litter the marketplace and so they are cheap.

How do I buy machines in Taiwan factory direct? A lot of those factories are hard to find and I’m not even sure they would sell to individuals. Woodworking machines in particular is very expensive and hard to find.

taiwanluthiers said:

How much was that machine new? I’m thinking it’s goimg to be at least 3000 dollars if not more.

I don’t have a whole lot of money for budget and at around 1000 dollars all they have are machines that make Seig X2 look like a Bridgeport, that is to say nobody uses mini mills in Taiwan because people don’t machine stuff for fun like Americans do and anything smaller than a Bridgeport is useless for work.

Because there are so many tool and die shops those Bridgeport type mills litter the marketplace and so they are cheap.

How do I buy machines in Taiwan factory direct? A lot of those factories are hard to find and I’m not even sure they would sell to individuals. Woodworking machines in particular is very expensive and hard to find.

Click to expand...

First, if you buy a $1000 machine, you get a $1000 machine. The question you have to ask yourself is "Does that machine meet my expectations?". I'm pretty sure it will not and will prove to be a poor investment. The best advice I can give you is to never buy junk. This purchase will only hurt once. Two years from now any purchase pain will be a distant memory. Buy the correct machine, you will not regret it. If you don't have the money, save some more, then buy the right machine.

Of course you can buy direct from a factory. I never met a sales person that did not want to sell. This factory is on the mainland where the main machine is made, but the machine head is actually made in Taiwan. I paid $4400 delivered to my driveway in Germany in 2004. I actually went to a large industrial fair in Canton and ordered the machine direct from the factory rep on the show floor. Use the internet and your telephone. Trust me, it will work fine.

If that's the case I should buy the most expensive machine that I can find?

Proxxon makes a small (small as in very small) milling machine for around 500 dollars or so. I don't know what goes into it but it does not look like something with any real stiffness that can machine anything other than wood or plastic. But then for 500 dollars you could buy say a Seig X2 that is much stiffer than the Proxxon milling machine, at least it had cast iron tables whereas Proxxon has table made out of extruded aluminum (and it looks like the entire machine is made out of cast aluminum too)

I have a total budget of maybe around 2000 dollars and I need more than one machine, so options like power feed, DRO, etc. do not matter at this point since the machine is intended to be at first a drill press but rather a platform that allows me to do more and more as money come in. Plus since it's a Bridgeport clone, it should do what a Bridgeport can do.

There are other similar machines that sells anywhere from 1500-3000 dollars and up depending on the condition it's in and what it comes with (higher price points come with DRO, power feed, power drawbar, and other addons that cost money but are easily retrofitted).

Considering the largest mill I ever worked with is a Grizzly G0704 I think a bridgeport clone is a serious upgrade compared to anything I worked with so it should for the foreseeable future meet my needs. If I need to machine aerospace components at some point in the future then I may perhaps get better machine (or pay someone to EDM it for me since there are a lot of EDM shops within walking distance from my house). Unless of course the machine is in such a bad condition that the bearing is completely shot, and I will see the machine in person to make sure that isn't the case.

Look for a Webb. They are made in Taiwan.

steve-l said:

I suggest that before you make up your mind on what machine to buy, you look at Hangzhou Milling Machine Manufacturing Co. LTD. Specifically Model X5325C It is excellent and it has many more features than the one you have shown. I have owned the same machine since 2004. I bought it factory equipped with a SINO 3 axis DRO and the machine and DRO has been flawless. I bought it directly from the factory. Avoid dealers, they add no value.

Click to expand...

By the way I tried looking for this Hanzhou milling machine company and all I found was a company called hanzhou dazhi that only makes CNC machining centers and no manual mills. There are lots of companies called Hanzhou and I’m not sure I can find it.

I just got this mill....



I got this one instead of the other one (this one is $300 more than the other one but it came with a 4 inch Kurt style vise) because it has step pulleys rather than variable speed head (I did some reading and it seems variable speed head have issues) but also this mill is just beefier than the other ones I looked at in the price range. It has a NMTB 40 taper rather than NMTB 30 the other machines have, and the quill is just much beefier compared to the other mills. I ran it under power to make sure there are no issues and I even used a dial indicator to make sure there are no runouts.

Table droop is very small, maybe .04mm at most.

I do not know why the picture is upside down even though it was right side up in my computer!