Good Drill Press or Cheap Mill?

A cheap mill will mill and drill holes. A good drill press will only drill holes.
Keep your existing DP, and buy one of the Chinese mini mills, or a Taig or Sherline mini mill.
 
Thanks Bill,
I'll start looking around and saving. Are there any mills I should stay away from?
 
There is a smaller model of the Chinese mill you pictured. They are not very durable. The model you pictured should work fine for your purpose, but will fall short for heavier work.
 
I have recently looked into this. I found the mini-mills to be attractive, but they lack the mass needed for heavy machining, and they are costly.

Smithy makes an American assembled and supported mini-mill with near under 1000 lbs (888lbs. IIRC) of weight to it's credit. But the quote I received was near $4000 for their baseline product.

I am relegated to hunting Craigslist and maybe Ebay with local sellers, for a $1000 quality machine. Most high quality, albeit old, machines sell for around $1000 with a good bit of tooling. I know I am looking for an old used machine now. Old machines don't get old being made from crap.
 
I'm pretty sure Grizzly tools makes a small milling machine for under 1K.
At one time I was contemplating the same thing as the OP. I am more of a woodworker so I went with a drill press
 
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