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If you could only have one mill,

Madd Cat

Plastic
Joined
Nov 9, 2019
and you had about 7-10 grand to spend on it, which one would you chose?

I'm looking at a K&T 3CH with a universal overhead for a 7k ask and assume that there will be at least 10 man hours involved before I can reliably put it into service.

On paper, it looks like I could do just about anything I'd ever need or want to do with it. Any thoughts from you guys? Aside from the obvious perils of buying old and used, why should I NOT get it?
 
HBM. 3" bar. 5" if I had the space. Might divert to a DeVlieg jig-bore?

No MANUAL machine in the shop is as flexible. HBM can even make a fair-capable lathe, and - obviously - a bitchin' good heavy drill. And waaay better than any lathe can emulate a MILL or a drillpress can even find some other part-time job at all.

Now.. if ALL MANUAL is not a requirement? Multi-axis CNC "machining center" can do more, yet as far as earning coin.

Wouldn't want one for repair work, mining, rail, transport, marine, agro, or any sort of heavy process plant machinery - think rubber or paper production, rock crushers, lime kilns, stamping operation, die or mould alteration or repair, etc.

"Repair work" is where yer legacy K&T lets you get AT some feature that happens to have a yard and a half of OTHER material as has to hang-off and "be SOMEWHERE" whilst you address a detail on it.

A decent HBM can do that stuff as well or even better. So long as YOU are up to it.

Respect that part.

There is sound reason that the HBM Wizards were considered minor Gods, back in the day. They EARNED that off the back of what others thot to be Black Magic, even just in their set-up, let alone firing-up the spindle.

:)
 
and you had about 7-10 grand to spend on it, which one would you chose?

I'm looking at a K&T 3CH with a universal overhead for a 7k ...
You've got to be kidding. You'd have a hard time getting $500 for one of those.

The smallest devlieg would be nice but something like a deckel ot a maho is probably more practical and more versatile.

Personally, I'd probably get a nice 2-30 Gorton with a tracer and spend the difference on horses, booze and wild wimmen.
 
You've got to be kidding. You'd have a hard time getting $500 for one of those.

The smallest devlieg would be nice but something like a deckel ot a maho is probably more practical and more versatile.

Personally, I'd probably get a nice 2-30 Gorton with a tracer and spend the difference on horses, booze and wild wimmen.

Better stick to the wimmin' C-MOS.

Your "workpieces" are so small a Deckel can handle them, you'd not even get the average Mare breathing hard nor but mildly annoyed even with several inches of stepover on the hole positioning, no coolant.
 
A Shizouka horizontal/vertical. Hard to find the combo ones but they are about the nicest that aren't too damn small euro trash trophy mills.
 
A Shizouka horizontal/vertical. Hard to find the combo ones but they are about the nicest that aren't too damn small euro trash trophy mills.

Seconded.

Shizuoka Milling Machines

I HAVE a USMT "Quartet".

Quartet is on page 12 onward

By comparison, the Shizuoka "G" with turret up-top wins on:

- providing the 360-degreee rotation ABOVE the horizontal spindle rather than swiveling BOTH. That saves 2,000 lbs, Avoir needs but four bolts released rather than eight, and simplifies the drivetrain.

- B&S "Universal" of antiquity, nor Rambaudi & cousins more recently lack that swivel feature altogether.

That said, even with 40-taper H and V, neither are as beefy as mills go as the K&T's and their massive tables.

So .. back to "only one mill... for WHAT type of USE?"

If'n I were into "tall" clocks?

The only "mill" I'd ever need wud' be my H.B. Preise pantoengraver!

"Big Ben"? I'd want a large DeVlieg jig-bore and a good indexer/DH rig!

:)
 
The K&T would be great for hogging, but drilling would suck without a quill. I would probably agree on the small hbm, but if it had to be a smaller machine I would probably go for a 40 taper bridgeport type machine with power/rapid on all 3 axis. With a riser block, box ways, horizontal spindle, power drawbar, newall DRO, pendant control if possible.
 
I prefer the mill that's already in my shop and not some unknown girl that may not be able to dance. :-)

If the OP has the space and cash, why not get a nice mid sized horizontal. It better have one heck of a lot of new-ish tooling and be in great shape for that price though.

L7
 
+1 on the Wells 860C for a manual machine. Small footprint for horizontal and vertical capable machine. Been on my wish-list for a while.

Best Regards,
Bob
 
Was in the same situation as you, and went with Deckel and as many accesories as I could find. That being said, unlikely you'll get this setup within your budget constraints. If you do go Deckel, I would recommend you buy from germany, the quality and availability is 100x what you have in the US.
 








 
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