I'm in the process of selecting a new milling machine and surface grinder. I want a 10x50 table on the mill and 12x24ish on the surface grinder but maybe bigger on that one. It'll be used in our maintenance shop where I work. Money is not an issue in that I'm wanting the best piece that I can get. I have an idea on the mill but would like to get some input on both from anyone here that will help. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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New machine/machines purchase
- Thread starter Mark029
- Start date
- Replies 17
- Views 2,546
JRIowa
Diamond
- Joined
- May 27, 2003
- Location
- Marshalltown, Iowa, USA
Well, since you have not budget, here's my opinion (that's all you will get here)
For the grinder, get an Okamoto ACC-DX Saddle Series - Features - Okamoto Corporation
Get an OKK MH2V bed mill MH2V/2P | PRODUCTS | OKK CORPORATION
With tooling, those should take care of your budget.
JR
For the grinder, get an Okamoto ACC-DX Saddle Series - Features - Okamoto Corporation
Get an OKK MH2V bed mill MH2V/2P | PRODUCTS | OKK CORPORATION
With tooling, those should take care of your budget.
JR
Well so much for the foreign crap not being talked about on the website, but you did want the best
redlee
Titanium
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2009
- Location
- Beaver County Alb. Canada
greggv
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2006
- Location
- so cal, usa
Look at Webb mills, they're always good. I like Okamoto surface grinders.
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
"Foreign crap" has always existed. PM's wont is to avoid discusion of it.
"Foreign" silver, gold, & even platinum have always existed as well.
PM's founder not only permits discussion of the "good stuff" - he traffics in it, even reveres it. Most of us do.
Okamoto ranks among "the good stuff".
Open-ended budget? Last time I looked SIP Genevoise's lineal descendent was making CNC mills, too.
OTOH "maintenance shop"? That "dream" budget might not be as generous as the OP thinks it is once he starts getting real-world prices and delivery lead-times put to it!
I'd looked at the Mega Mill by Lagun. Is that a pretty good machine? Right now I have a Chevalier and it's not so great. Not sure what OTOH stands for in the comment above but this purchase is stemming from having to send out some work that lead to a 3 day delay in a project. Far as imports go, I didn't think there was anything made in the states anymore. For a grinder, is there any advantage of a Blanchard over a regular surface grinder? I've never ran a Blanchard before so I'm a little curious about those.
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Basque country Spain has been working metal, and well, since they were the primo Bronze cannon-makers to the Kings. Earlier-yet, actually. Hannibal & Hasdrubal Barca's time. Good value-for-money in general.
Better planning manages mere "3 day" delays more effectively than throwing machinery at them. Whole machine-hall fulla spindles won't help much if the delay is in raw materials, fasteners, or surface-treatment chemistry.
Surely there are still US & Canadian makers. CNC grinder houses. Mills too -also CNC.
It is general-purpose MANUAL machine-tools and grinders as have gone scarce as to new production on the North American Continent. Wells-Index, Oliver of Adrian and a scarce few are still with us.
That said...CNC and "maintenance"? May or may not be a good fit.
As with your query about Blanchard grinding, "we" - the PM community - don't really yet know what it is you DO, to what alloys, in what shapes and sizes, nor to what tolerances, throughput, other time-constraints, or available cost margins.
"Not enough information".
Seems as if you'll have to go and 'sess that out for YOURSELF a great deal better before you even have enough info of real use to pass-on to PM as more focussed questions, no?
Where seriously mission-critical, company survival & future prosperity is involved?
No matter how good YOU are, were I your next-higher's bean counter/ULM, I'd be running the most experienced grey-haired outside consultant I could hire through the whole of the process right about now for at least a "second opinion". Too close to a forest. Blind to the trees.
Nicest-made and legendary-good Big Name machinery on-planet is useless if it is wrong for the task you actually HAVE. And the budget to correct that is now "blown".
You MIGHT just need sharper management and more and better support contractors. Machinery is kinda stoopid without decent human help.
2CW
Thanks Thermite. These machines are typically used for day to day maintenence in a power plant. We do have outages where we lean on them alot more and they become very critical at that point. Problem with the planning you speak of is that we're in a very rural area and should have been able to handle the job in question in house. We sent it out to have back the next day and then they sent it out because their machine wouldn't handle it either. Those three days we had nothing to do,I could more than pay for both machines easily and probably a nice vacation to Hawaii for 3 or 4 of my coworkers and their families thrown in. The grinder I have is worn out and too small for the job that got sent out. The mill I have has issues somewhere within that's causing severe chatter on large cutters. I could send it to get fixed but we've opted to replace it because it's our best option at this point. I need to have this stuff purchased, delivered and installed before we have another upcoming outage within a few months. The tolerances I'm talking about aren't anything significant (within .001 usually). It's just been offered for me to get some good quality stuff so I'm jumping on it. Wish this would have happened last year though as I replaced a lathe with new Jet. I like it but I know there's much better stuff out there but I replaced a small Birmingham with it. So it was definitely a step in the right direction.
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Closest parallel I have is trying to keep "liquid in the column" of a pair of one-ton-per-day liqid Oxygen plants. Hundred kay-dub diesels per-each wore themselves out at 88-90 KVA loads in a matter of 2 to 4 weeks of 24 X 6 running, so I had a legal "spare" on warm standby for each within easy sub-five-minute cable-swap reach.
Two more, over and above authorized TO&E were constantly rotating into and out of Depot-level rebuild shop down in Cholon area of Saigon. Seriously BAD quality of rebuild, too - which is why the short life span.
Greater depth of "ready spares", be they new or just already properly rebuilt and shelved - are whatcha need most.
ULM questions their cost? Well.
Fifty years ago value to the US doller, and some Major up at USARV G4 called me once:
"Lewtenunt? Just WTF sort of equipment justifies a $12,600 PB-44 air compressor as a "spare part"?
"Sir? Would you believe a pair of two and a half MILLION dollar air-mobile Oxygen generating plants and Okinawa and a slow sea voyage the next closest place to GET that Oxygen for cutting and welding?"
Seriously.
DoD was FLYING in pallets of 153 lb non-shat steel 7 cu meter cylinders with but 7 or 8 lbs worth of gas, each by C-130 and Starlifter out of Defense Depot Tracy in Nawthun California, it was that critical to a mechanized war.
You have similar "priorities" and similar shortage of alternatives?
Better machine tools alone won't meet them. Too slow vs ready spares.
You need jsut enough under-roof capabiity to create those spares ahead of need, and even that only when far BETTER equipped contractors cannot.
2CW
Jaxian
Stainless
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2013
- Location
- Santa Cruz
I'm going to go with the Lagun MVM4 Mill but undecided on the grinder still. This will be a machine that I'll rarely use so I don't really see the need to buy something with all the bells and whistles. I just need I to be a solid piece. Looking at a Republic, Sharp, Chevalier and a Kent. Any suggestions? I looked at the Okamoto and although I don't see them telling me no, I just don't think I need that much machine. I'm just trying to hold my work to .001. Also, the particular job I'm getting this for is tapered. Will I need a sine plate, shims or is there an way to grind something on a taper?
Limy Sami
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2007
- Location
- Norfolk, UK
If the work is small enough I prefer to fixture the part at an angle instead of moving the head, If the part is big enough then you have clamp it to the table (or floor or whatever) and adjust the mill to fit the work. Also I would think with maintenance work you could afford to check tram and make more passes for the sake of flexibility.
I guess it depends on what you expect to work on and how you will approach it.
