Milling machine advice

[VicParticipant @vic]

Ultimately my choice of mill was decided by machines I’d used in the past. They were all traditional knee mills and I really didn’t like the idea of a moveable head. I was told by a time served machinist to avoid using the quill for anything other than drilling to preserve rigidity, which is everything on a mill.

[teucher]

On teucher Said:

… I have about 1.2 m of worktop cleared for the mill and a large cabinet for tooling. I would consider a used machine at a fair price as my budget would go further. I understand about the clearance etc and once vices and clamps are introduced that this is drastically reduced, so perhaps a used machine is the way to go. I cant seem to find the classified on the site to see if any are advertised, but i will have a search.

Classifieds are accessed via the Blue Banner top of page:

There’s a WM16B on offer at the moment, asking price £1500, location Falkirk.

As to understanding clearance, don’t forget the table moves rather a long way under the quill, with a pronounced overhang either side.  When planning, make sure the wheels won’t collide with anything and there’s room for the operator to turn them.

My WM18 has a 850mm long table that can be cranked out 430mm either side, so making full use of the machine needs about 1.9 metres of sideways real estate.  I guess a WM16 is proportional, roughly 1.4 metres.

Possible to manage with less travel, and it’s unusual for me to machine anything longer than 400mm.   Does happen though!  Nobody ever confesses to it but I guess a few newbies carefully squeezed their new machine into a tight corner only to find there wasn’t room to move the table!

Buying second-hand is a bit risky because consumer protection law does not apply.   I’d want to see the machine cutting metal before I bought it, even better getting an experienced engineer to test it.  Join a club maybe?   Delivery is another problem solved by buying new.   A WM16 weighs about 150kg, and mills are an awkward unbalanced top-heavy load.   Not a one man lift, and may have to be dismantled to move in an ordinary car.    Not a problem if you own a van and have a few fit young men in the family, otherwise plan for  some faff…

Vic gives some well-meaning advice about knees, quills and rigidity.  Unfortunately Vic and his ‘time served machinist’ mate failed to notice teucher is after a bench-top machine, which rarely have knees!   It’s a problem with forum format, once a topic gets beyond a page or two, folk contribute without reading previous wisdom!

My advice to teucher is he wouldn’t go far wrong buying any of the Far Eastern milling machines in the bench-top class – they’re similar. For example, the Warco WM16 comes in two versions, belt-drive and gearbox.   Both drive systems have pros and cons, but at this stage of the game teucher is unlikely to know which is best for him.

I started the hobby by buying a mini-lathe and am ashamed to admit I went into deep dither mode before ordering one, wasting oodles of time studying specifications that I didn’t quite understand!   I also read a lot of out-of-date advice in books and on the web, and took a while to realise that some Model Engineers have personal agendas!  Back then many older chaps wanted newcomers to adopt Imperial measure for cultural rather than engineering reasons!     I was much happier after ordering what seemed a good deal at the time and getting to grips with the machine.   I learned more about lathes by cutting metal than all the reading.  Not because reading is a waste of time, far from it, but because chunks of it don’t make much sense until the tool, materials, and skill-levels are experienced.

Dave

 

 

 

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

For the Weiss machines (the actual manufacturer of Warco’s range) you can find more comprehensive details on the amount of space needed on Grizzly’s website. Being an American company, all the dimensions are in Imperial, and you have to do a bit of hunting to figure out which model corresponds to the name used in the UK, but, for example,  on this page*:

https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-7-x-27-1-hp-mill-drill-with-stand/g0704

if you scroll down to the tab marked Product Links you can find the manual. In the case of the one linked to, page 16 (18 of the .pdf) gives the dimensions and required envelope of this machine. The manuals here are rather more comprehensive than the UK ones too.

With regard to the WM16B, it has a number of differences from the brush motor one, and to my mind is a better bet. I fitted DROs myself – much cheaper than buying the machine with them already fitted.

* I haven’t bothered to figure out which this one is – WM16 brush motored maybe?

[teucherParticipant @teucher]

Hi there,

iv had some great advice and food for thought in the replies and appreciate everyones advice and input. Hopefully i can mull it all over and come up with a plan .

Cheers

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:rk.

.

My WM18 has a 850mm long table that can be cranked out 430mm either side, so making full use of the machine needs about 1.9 metres of sideways real estate.

 

 

Did not have you down as a fisherman Dave but how can you get 860mm (2 x 430) from a table that is only 850mm long as you need some length still engaged in the dovetails. Most other WM18s have about 550mm total travel

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

We are of course talking about space required not size of workpiece. I had to think a bit as the max movement of my (different mill) table is less than its length obviously but adding the possible side movement x2 plus saddle is still well below the manual’s claimed space requirement. However the endplates and handles add a surprising amount to the overall length occupied. It would be in a way wasted space if I were to allocate free floor space for it but on one side the handle goes into the depth of the window sill and on the other the bench drill table sometimes has to be moved out of the way.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

JasonB,

I was aware that the link was to the SX2.7 but that is the currently available model. As the OP is looking at a new mill that must be what he was referring to when he said SX2.

Robert.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You can still get the SX2 in the case of ARC it is the SX2PG which is the brushless twin gas strut model with rigid column.

Price is more likely to have been the SX3 as someone else wrongly suggested that ARC were doing that with a bundle at the moment. It is actually the SX3.5ZP bundle that the recent email was about. but well over budget.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Get an R8 spindle model rather than Morse taper, designed for mills, wheras MT was designed for drilling, there is a difference.

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