First Vertical Mill

[jrod]

I'm a relatively new hobbyist, looking for a small vertical knee mill, faced with the age old dilemma: should I embark on a quest for a used American standard like a Clausing 8520(8530)/Rockwell 21-100 or buy a new Chinese version? It seems like Grizzly (G3102)/Harbor Freight (40939-1VGA)/Wholesale Tool (3004-0095)/Penn Toll Co. (DM-150) all sell what look to be the same machine. Does anyone have any experience with these Chinese replacements? Thanks for your help.

[stiven]

jrod, Around here where i live 30 year old bridgeports are selling for upwards of $5000.00 so I recently purchased a new birmingham mill and also a lathe from american machine tool. They had the best price;Around $3000.00. The ways and everything hardened in all the right places.Got good recomendations from some of the guys here on the board. I know a lot of the guys are partial to the older american made jobs but a good machine without a lot of bed wear can be tough to find.I went with a simpler machine (no bells and whistles)and then installed a VFD to get my variable speed and phase conversion. Works like a charm.

[JeffG]

JRod - I have a Harbor Freight knee mill. Seems to work pretty well, but because I'm a newbie, I might not know what I'm missing. I had to clean up some metal chips when I got it, but other than that, no complaints. Guess it depends on your expectations.

[This message has been edited by JeffG (edited 11-04-2004).]

[MikeHenry]

My preference would be for the Clausing or Rockwell, but a friend had a similarly sized Enco that he liked pretty well until he replaced it with a Rockwell horizontal/vertical mill.

The Enco seemed pretty decent to me but has 8 tpi leadscrews on the X- and Y-axes, which means 0.125"/rev on the handles, whereas the Clausing (and Rockwell, I think) have 10 tpi screws or 0.100"/rev.

I'd be forever screwing up table moves on the Enco, trying to mentally keep track of position with 0.125" per turn. A DRO would solve that problem, of course.

Mike

[sch]

The mills you mention are as you note clones of the Clausing 8520 and similar Rockwell designs. For a nice shot of the 8520 type
Clausing 8520 into Google -- note the inserted chunk of metal (riser) between the bottom of the mill head and the top of the collum on this machine and its lack on any of the clones you mention. These machines were styled the M1A1 and were the basic knee mill for several decades in the '40-70s.
This riser points up one of the major failings of many smaller mills: lack of room between the table and the spindle nose.
See post on Griz 3102 on the "general" forum in the past month for more on this. A clearance of 12-13.5" allows very little room to work with. A minimal set up with a 3/8" end mill (2" long below spindle) and a 4" or 5" vice on the table (4" high) and that leaves you 6" work space. Not too bad
for 3/8" end mill but if you go 3/4" EM which is 3-4" below the collet you are down
to 4-5" space. Put a drill chuck in there
and use up 3" with the chuck, then a 1/16" drill needs another 1" but a 1/2" drill extends down 3-4" leaving 2-3" workspace.
Clamping direct to the table picks up some
but not all of the vice space. 12" will allow much work to be done but is a significant limitation after a while. A Bridgeport clone is the only way to improve on this, all the other small knee mills have the same working distance unless risers are added under the head. Risers are not hard to make if you have a mill and this is a common improvement.
You might consider one of the dovetail column drill mills as an alternative. They
all have 16.5-18" under the spindle, usually
larger tables and are cheaper. Griz has the
G0519 which has a tapping function. You have to get a rotary converter or VFD to run it at home and it needs a stand so the price is a wash, but it is a much newer design and the tapping function is an attraction, though a VFD might be a problem with this: control of the tapping function would have to be routed through the VFD, ie the machine would have to be rewired.
Weight is a consideration: the M1A1 variants weigh close to 1000# and the dovetail drillmills about 600-700# and a Bridgeport clone 2200-2400#. Where you are
going to put your machine and how you move it
are considerations. Steve

[ralphe]

I have had my Birmingham mill for a year now and have used it for hobby work with complete success. The vendor and support has been very good.

[firbikrhd1]

I had the same dilemma as you and searched high and low for a machine that fit my needs. I finally found an Index Model 40, via one of these forums. It's a very nice machine, heavily built, American made, power quill feed, power feed on the X axis, head swivels right and left, 16 5/8" available between the table and spindle and about 1/2 the size of a Bridgeport. Only problems are that there aren't too many of them around so there isn't a great deal of info on them. They were last made in the 1940's, I think. The manufacturer is still in business - Wells-Index, and has some parts available.

Here are some links to pics of one:

http://metalworking.com/DropBox/_200...s/index-40.jpg

http://metalworking.com/DropBox/_200...index-40-1.jpg

http://metalworking.com/DropBox/_200...index-40-4.jpg


This company had one for sale without power table feed:
<A HREF="http://www.galleryofmachines.com/Inventory.htm#MILLS:" TARGET=_blank>
http://www.galleryofmachines.com/Inventory.htm#MILLS:[/url]

I have no connection with these people. There is an e mail address on their web site and they will send you a pic of the machine.

This link is to a forum where some owners of this mill are speaking of it's virtues:

http://www.metalworking-forum.com/me...AZ_500508.html

I hope this helps and doesn't put even more uncertainty in your quest.

[This message has been edited by firbikrhd1 (edited 11-06-2004).]

[reelescape1]

Rockwell mills are .200" per revolution on X & Y

[weldnfab]

If you havn't allready found this site ck it out. He has a welth of informaton on lots of things. Goos Luck.
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Main/mini-mill.htm

[SGW]

I'll put in my usual suggestion to look at the Jet JVM-836....