new milling machine

Hi, I’m looking to buy a mill I am new to this game so would appreciate any advice it would be used mainly on ali making bits for air guns so nothing to heavy, the ones I am looking at are a SPG 9512Bc at £535 (the best one on paper to me with a R8 or MT3 another question), Warco WM 12 at £685, Chester Conquest Super Mill at £525 and finally a machine mart Clarke CMD300 at £549 on a vat free day, I have a ML7 (thanks Ian everything is working spot on) with a vertical slide should I just stick with that and if possible buy a collet set for it or a DRO as it's the depth I have trouble with, many thanks in anticipation, or has any one got a second hand one as they seem to be like rocking horse poo.

Cheers

Martin

Edited By martin107 on 27/10/2017 06:55:59

Hi Martin,

i think you are right to look for a Mill as performing this operation on your ML7 does have its limitations. Regarding the R8/MT3 choice, I bought a second hand Rishton mill which I am very pleased with but it does have a MT2 spindle nose. Removing tooling from the spindle is a major operation with the use of wedges !!!!!! I would therefore recommend sourcing an mill with an R8 spindle nose which avoids this issue.

good luck with your search.

on a vat free day,

This always makes me chuckle. They are reducing all these items by 20%; VAT is still payable - they can't legally get around it! So perhaps these items are actually overpriced most of the time?

Whatever the final choice go for R8. Tooling plentiful and cheap.

In the right hands the Myford should do as good or better job than the small mills, Only yesterday I was looking at the website of a guy who built a Bently BR2 radial just on his myford. A mill will likely make it easier and quicker.

There was a recent thread on R8 vs MT best look at that rather than fill another thread with the same answers.

Edited By JasonB on 27/10/2017 08:04:34

.

Wise words, Jason

Regarding the two new '... for beginners' series in MEW :

I realise that you are demonstrating with a substantially bigger mill than Martin is considering, but: I wonder if it would it be worth you and Neil each demonstrating the manufacture of some particular item; one using the Mill and one using the Lathe.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 27/10/2017 08:12:56

And there was me thinking of leaving turning on the mill until the end of the series!

Yes that would be a good idea, not sure if Neil got a vertical slide with his SC4 but I'm sure that if one is in the ARC range then ketan could lend him one.

If anyone is interested, this is Dan's site, it mostly deals with his Jupiter engine which he did also use a Bridgeport for and there is a link to the BR2 at the top of the page. The Jupiter is now being completed by Mike Cole over on MEM

In the right hands the Myford should do as good or better job than the small mills, Only yesterday I was looking at the website of a guy who built a Bently BR2 radial just on his myford. A mill will likely make it easier and quicker.

There was a recent thread on R8 vs MT best look at that rather than fill another thread with the same answers.

Thanks Jason, I thought R8 was the way forward

Martin