rScotty
Super Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2001
- Messages
- 8,300
- Location
- Rural mountains - Colorado
- Tractor
- Kubota M59, JD530, JD310SG. Restoring Yanmar YM165D
I hope you can find a good used Bridgeport mill. Others are good, too. We use our shop mill for everything. It's one of those tools that I never thought I needed until one happened along. Now I can't imagine being without. The old manual mills manual ones are fast becoming very cheap. There may yet be a few out there in tech schools, junior colleges, or old machine shops. Probably same price range as the better 18" drill presses. Be sure to get the vise, collets, drill chuck, and some bits. Hire a rigger to move it to your shop - it's worth it.
I use mine for a drill press all the time - and for wood-working as well. I just got through using it to do a project with invisible joints using glued dowls. Last year we used a flycutter to flatten one side of an ornamental hardwood slab. .
The other day a friend brought over a vintage cast part with a broken hardened bolt down inside a tapped hole. We clamped it down and center drilled that broken bolt with a tiny carbide end-cutting milling bit. A few steps later and out she came. You couldn't have done that any other way I know of.
There are times I don't even turn the motor on - just use the mill to hold something absolutely solid and dialed in to hit a true center while I turn the qull by hand. Nice tool.
rScotty
I use mine for a drill press all the time - and for wood-working as well. I just got through using it to do a project with invisible joints using glued dowls. Last year we used a flycutter to flatten one side of an ornamental hardwood slab. .
The other day a friend brought over a vintage cast part with a broken hardened bolt down inside a tapped hole. We clamped it down and center drilled that broken bolt with a tiny carbide end-cutting milling bit. A few steps later and out she came. You couldn't have done that any other way I know of.
There are times I don't even turn the motor on - just use the mill to hold something absolutely solid and dialed in to hit a true center while I turn the qull by hand. Nice tool.
rScotty