Bench top milling machine?

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

Been looking into a small bench top mill for my shop. Eyeballing the harbor freight central machinery 2 speed unit, with the sub $1k cost being the most appealing factor. The reviews seem to be favorable. This is for small hobby jobs and refurbishing projects etc.. the occasional parts kit build, not for any kind of major heavy industrial work.

Does anyone have any experience with a similar unit? Will this be suitable for my needs?

 

[mak91]

Many many moons ago I started off with that mill. It made a good drill press but for milling as long as you don't need accuracy it will work ok. I eventually upgraded with zero backlash ball screws, dro's and eventually converted it to cnc. It ended up being a decent little machine with all the upgrades I did to it but as it comes its a fair machine. The ball screw upgrade made a huge difference in accuracy and easy of use. Back then they were $400 and look about same.

 

[Villafuego]

I had one for a while, and like Mak91 mentioned, backlash in the table became an issue. It's a great way to completely ruin your day.

Question is, how big of a table do you need, and how much travel do you want? A vice, and other holding tools can take up a lot of space quickly.

I ended up selling it, and rebuilding an older Benchmaster I picked up at an auction ...... after building a table, replacing bearings/etc, I had about 1.5K in to it ....... I regret selling that one when I moved from FL to Louisiana

 

[Mackjack]

Get a knee mill where table moving up and down sets the height of the mill bit into the work, then gravity is always working in your favor to take out the slip of that axis. If you get one where the z height of the Bit is controlled only from the quill like a drill press you will always be filled with disappointment and frustration. I learned the hard way. A drill press style is workable… better than nothing… but you have to set the depth by only partially releasing the quill lock and sort of adjusting it down powering thru the friction of the quill lock otherwise the quill just falls down and you lose all control of the depth

 

[skoda]

I bought a Sieg C6 mill from Grizzly. I don't see it on their web site so they must have dropped it. It's a good machine and it does almost anything that I could want. I am limited in size of the work piece so sometimes I have to get creative or job out the work. It cost me around $1300 15 years ago but I've since added DROs and a bunch of tooling that more than doubles that amount. I also had to hire two movers to bring it into my basement and get it up on the work bench that I specially made for it. To me it's worth it because I very much enjoy working on projects so the money is not the main concern for my choice.

 

[ericthered]

I have not messed with the harbor freight mill/drill. Years ago I bought the harbor freight mini lathe. I suspect this mill falls into the same 90% useless category. I have made a bunch of functional parts with my lathe, but it is a fight to get any accuracy.
Imo you will find that you will have very little movement to accomplish much of anything in any axis. If you put a vise on, you wont have much vertical axis either. The motor wont have much guts, so will limit your cutting abilities.

What are your constraints? Space, weight, or price?

I have a 2hp jet mill that was converted to CNC. I am right now pretty constrained by space. It barely fits (actually borrowing that mill from a family member on a semi permanent basis). It can do the job pretty decently. I think it was picked up for under $2k from facebook.
Then I have a duplex knee mill that I dont have setup yet as I have no where to run it.
I bought my duplex for $2k on the public surplus auction. If price is the limiting factor, spending a little more can get you a lot better machine.

I dont think you are going to end up being very happy with that machine. I think it will fit into the category (that I have often over bought in) of something that can almost do what you need it to do, but will drive you crazy getting your desired results.

 

[Caverpete]

Look into offerings by Little Machine Shop. Also maybe check out this thread on a different forum:

Comparing two mini mills for hobby AK building

I've been hoping to upgrade to a mini mill this year and its come down to two options, both from LittleMachineShop As shown below the specs seem to be very similar between the two. If I only plan to do firearm related stuff is there much justification to spend the extra $450 for the HiTorque...

www.theakforum.net

 

[Hey]

I have a Sherline mill. The founder past away a few years ago but the company has continued 100%. Staggering amount of accessories, like rotary table, etc etc. Can be purchased as CNC or upgraded from their manual to CNC.

https://www.sherline.com/sherline-vertical-milling-machines/

That said, taking bites out of steel is limited like .010” so for any real work I take to a friend that has a “real” [Bridgeport] mill to get work done.

For aluminum, a Sherline is okay, still .020” max, its limitations are what had me move towards 3d printing long ago. A manual mill is like an Etch-a-sketch, any changes you have to start over. 3D was a game changer. If I bought a new mill today I’d have to jump straight to a Haas Mini, the rest including Tormach are all toys.

Last thing I made in 2018 on the Sherline. A switchblade .22lr single shot top break with a folding trigger. Meant to carry like a pocket knife. The Sherline mill has some value, but it’s SLOW compared to anything proper.

 

[mak91]

I also had the HF mini lathe as mentioned above. I believe it was the 7 x 14 model and I remember if I turned a rod for the full length of the lathe travel the tail end would always be .015 smaller in diameter, it just tapered down and no matter what I tried to adjust it always did that. These are the types of issues you'll have with these cheap machines be it mills or lathes. They can still be useful as I made a bunch of baffles for my form1 suppressors and I did learn a lot from having them you just need to know what you are getting in to.

 

[skoda]

That's probably because the bed of the machine flexed while cutting. You wouldn't think that a big piece of cast iron could flex but they most certainly do. I had an Atlas lathe that was fine cutting brass and aluminum but if I cut steel with anything more than a light cut you could see the bed twisting under the load.

 

[MitchWerbellsGhost87]

Not sure why I didn’t get any notifications for any of these replies on this thread, strange.

Thanks everyone for chiming in. Lots to take in here. My biggest restraint is price, as this is just not something that is going to get much use and is merely for the very occasional small repair or modification, not fabricating anything or doing any kind of real heavy work so I just don’t want to make this any kind of big investment. Space is also fairly limited, I don’t have a very large shop.

Lots to take into consideration here. I will continue researching my options.

 

[Jim in Texas]

A few thoughts.

First, there are no substitutes for mass and rigidity. Vibration and flex are maddening, even when working on small projects. Look at the weight of the machines you are considering, along with the width of the dovetails where the table or head move.

Second, avoid round column mill-drills. Even with small projects, you need to be able to move in the Z axis (up and down) to change tools, such as from a drill chuck to an end mill held in a collet, without losing your position in either the X or Y axis.

Third, consider used machines. Interests change. People move. You may be able to get a lightly-used machine at a significant savings.

Fourth, do you have a Maker Space or similar facility near where you live? They might not allow firearm-related projects, but you could still join for a few months to get some hands-on experience before you buy a machine of your own.