Yet another 'which mill shall I buy'

Re Bridgeport versatility and moving it

mine with. 42” table came in on a pallet truck through a standard door . The head was upside down to get it low enough to get under the door. The table was then fitted after positioning.

when I extended the workshop, I had to move it 25 ‘ and rotate it 180 degrees. This was easily accomplished in a couple of hours on my own by sliding on steel strips and round bars using a standard crow bar to lever it a n inch or so at a time, it wasn’t difficult, just needed a lot of care to keep fingers out of the way.

i have only used the head twist tor nod once in 15 years but the extending head enables very tall pieces to be drilled( boiler backhead) when it’s sat on the top of the knee to get the head room and in addition a very large job which was hung over the front. The auto down feed is not oft used, but combined with the boring head it’s indispensable., e.g boring/ fly cutting the base of a 7/14” chimney base makes this a very straightforward task.

The rotating column is brilliant , I keep a heavy vice well on the left of the table, an accurate swivel vice for most use in the centre, leaving a couple of feet on the right for 8” rotary table or dividing head. I leave two ring spanner’s almost permanently mounted so a 1/4 turn will release it to swivel the rotated  to the extremes .  The right one is also used for the draw bar so it is also in a handy storage position.

I also haven't used the quill master Don’t worry about metric or imperial machine. Mine is an imperial machine, but it has a metric table screw, I didn’t find this out for 10 years as I always use the dro converting to single phase was not difficult but needed a lot of head scratching and a couple of new contactors at 240 v and removal of a lot of the overload fuses.

my advice is simple. Get the biggest xxxxxxxx you can fit in your shop!

Edited By Zan on 12/11/2019 13:32:18

It takes me under a minute to change belt speeds on my VMC but if you have a belt allergy Warco do sell a variable speed model.

**LINK**

Some folks have made raising blocks for their VMC’s but many seem happy with the available Z. If they were available off the shelf I’d probably buy a modest size raiser block.

Hi Mark, is it a Deckel?

I could really fancy one of those, it's even better than my Centec 2B

See my album called VMC for a raising block I made for a friend of mine.

Vic

Maybe I have a 'belt allergy', and I guess that it's down to personal preference in the end. I would agree that it only takes less than a minute to change belt ratios, but I found from using the mill / drill that I could do that many times in a day which adds up to a considerable amount of lost productive time. Even though it is for hobby use, the lost productive time is important, particularly if time available to be spent in the workshop is limited.

However, there are other benefits to using a variable speed drive apart from changing speeds (which is instantaneous). The standard VMC only has 9 speeds, whereas the variable speed drive has as many as you want at the turn of a knob. Also, with the Newton Tesla remote control box there is also a 'jog' function, which I find invaluable for tapping holes under power. The Warco variable speed VMC was not available until recently.

I was so impressed with the inverter drive that I have also fitted my Myford with a package, as has a friend. Neither of us would wish to return to belt changing on a regular basis.

As for the raising block, I found that I really needed that extra headroom for the type of work that I undertake, and the tooling that I use. Had I been able to buy one 'off the shelf' then certainly I would have done so, but requests to Warco to supply proved unsuccessful.

We had an Alexander where I used to work, very nice machine. What taper is it in the vertical head, they never managed to identify it?

The Alex vertical head is 4mt, the original draw bar is S20, I'm getting quite proficient at cutting it, both internal and external.

I've done allsorts on mine, if you mount off the vertical where the table fits you can bore all the way to the floor!!

Point to note when using a vfd you will still be changing belts as you lose torque,

Richard

Edited By Richard - on 12/11/2019 16:17:20

After the circuit board on my x3 mill failed I went for a VMC with bets and pullies ( KISS). I have a lump of alloy to make a riser block but have not yet got around to making it . I have been told that Warco and other suppliers can not keep riser blocks "on the shelf" because of the variation between batches of the machines . Hence it is a take the head of, do the measuring of that particular machine ,machine the spacer and then put it back together again exercise .

Brian

Richard what year is your Alexander /number??

Mark

Hi Mark,

I'd like to know the year, I think 40's it must be late ish as it has needle rollers in the head, reads 1493

Richard

Edited By Richard - on 12/11/2019 18:11:59

Hi Richard your is probably from around 1958 or maybe later. Mines numbered 1220 but strangely the head is numbered 1224.

Mine was made on the 7th Feb 1956 and sold to the watchmaker and aircraft dial maker Louis Newmark (or the machine was finished being made on that date)

Mine doesnt have needle rollers but the round ballbearing rollers . One or 2 were corroded but i managed to find an old stock stack bearing on ebay and used two piece of that to finish the head stack.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 12/11/2019 19:44:46

Where did you get the buyer details?

What tooling did it come with?

Sometimes you just need a larger mill:

And VFDs are great but sometimes you need power at low spindle speeds to drive a 1" countersink in steel:

Can't remember where I got the countersink, but I think it was in a box of bits 'n' pieces I bought from a member of my gliding club as they were too big for his machine tools.

The steel plate is 600x500x15 and is one of the very few times when unknown material I've been offered has turned out to be useful.

Andrew

I'm still dithering.

I think the machine I would most like would be the SPGTools 2217 30BV (£1500) or the Toolco WM32B (1440) which I think are both the same Weiss machine.

Both these are out of stock and both from suppliers who seem not great at communicating (in fairness to Simon at SPG Tools, I bought my lathe from them and have been happy with support - he just doesn't like emails!).

They are 1500W variable speed with back gear with a movement of 565 x 220 and just big beasties (for a home machine). R8, of course.

The other possibility is the Amadeal AMAT45FG which is even bigger (£1732), but has fixed gears. I don't really know how much value the variable speed has. My CMD 10 has variable speed, but I probably only use 3 speeds (2000, 1000 and 500 ish). So perhaps that would work. Any thoughts on fixed gears?

I've decided that I can clear the end of my shed , move the lathe bench up the shed and fit most of these in. Not a bridgeport though.

I'm trying hard to control my impatience though. In truth, there's no real rush.

I'm also wondering why I'm spending more time researching and fretting over this purchase than I would over a house at vastly higher cost!

Iain

I must say Toolco do seem to be a bit of a strange company, they dont have a single lathe for example in stock out of the range they offer. Been like this for quite some time now, they also had no mills in stock the last time i looked.

It looks like Amadeal is about to get stock of the one I like. Still waiting for confirmation of price and specs, but I'm hopeful!

That's led me to as a question. How on earth am I going to get a 320Kg machine on a bench (or a stand if I go for one).

For that matter, how to get it out of the case?

I'm imagining that at best it will get delivered in a box to my shed (access is a tad awkward). I don't have an engine hoist, and the hire costs seem high. Further more, I'm not sure an engine hoist would get high enough or would have the flexibility.

I thought of building some kind of crane in the shed, but I suspect the tiny angle iron in the roof isn't up to the load and my welding skills barely touch 'beginner'.

I don't think I know enough REALLY STRONG blokes just to lift it up (I'm not one of them).

So how would you guys take delivery of this?

A related question is around disassembly, either to tweak things or in the event of a house move (expected in the next few years). I suspect some of the bits are beyond single person handling...

Iain

Check what the delivery conditions are, most will just have a pallet truck and if they can't get up the drive will drop at curb side, doubt they will take it down the garden to a shed.

I used an engine crane for the KX-3, about £20 to hire the crane which was reasonable to me

Edited By JasonB on 21/11/2019 17:45:28

Thanks, Jason.

Where did you hire it from? The ones I've found so far are somewhat more expensive...

I presume the stand is metal it looks a little light for it to be wood...

Iain

local hire shop, had it back to them in a couple of hours.

Timber