Harbor Freight Mini mill

tnmike

tnmike

Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
289
I asked Santa Claus to bring me a HF mini mill for Christmas and he came through big time. I had been too busy to set it up until this past weekend. I spent about two days taking the thing completley apart, cleaning, degreasing, adjusting and regreasing with white lithium grease. I adjusted the gibs in all three axis. I trammed the mill head in to within .001" and squared the mill vise I mounted on the mill table to within .001".

I am really please with the accuracy, power and capabilty of this little mill. A Bridgeport its not but if you work within its limitations you can do very, very accurate work with it. I love the variable speed feature. I would recommend this little machine to anyone that has the time and desire to do the necessary cleaning and setup that it needs coming out of the box. There is no way you can take this thing out of its crate, put it on a bench and even hope to come close to accuracy.

Ive seen a lot of threads on this little mill pro and con and I can comment at this time from experience. Any other users out there care to comment??...MIKE
 
Mike,

welcome to the Club. There're plenty of happy, satisfied HF Mini owners.
I am one of them.

groups.yahoo.com has a group dedicated to this mill: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mini-mill/

do a search on shumatech - this is DYI DRO for mills/lathes. Highly
recommended. I also replaced gear drive with belt drive, straight from
motor to the spindle, no gears to break and it runs smooth as silk.

Be careful not to overtighten the Z-stop, it might snap right down the middle. All locking handles are bad and will strip easily. When it happens,
get good ones from McMaster or Grizzly
 
I plan on doing the exact same thing here in a couple days/weeks...where can I find a list of what to tighten/grease/etc.?
 
group I mentioned. Another good resource is: www.mini-lathe.com
The thing is ready to go outta box. They got some bad rap about 8Y
when the quality simply wasn't there. Very different nowdays.

Getting the red grease off is about the only thing that's a must. rest is all
optional.
 
I would respectfully have to disagree with "it being ready to go out of the box" Its a great machine for the money, dont get me wrong. Mine was in serious need of cleaning and alignment. The mill head was not trammed and the mill table feed screws were way too tight. There was noway it could do accurate work as shipped. A little time spent up front will pay big dividends.

This new users guide from Little Machine Shop has a lot of good info.

http://www.littlemachineshop.com/info/MiniMillUsersGuide.pdf
 
ive been using mine for over a year and have had no problems. after said cleaning and tolerancing it does some pretty accurate work.my only complaint is the height. its hard to get a quality vise on it and still have good workable space.i have several vises i use for different things.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Vises/Angle_Vise.html
i use this vise for roughing in guards, it also works good for stock removal on blades to save belt
i also use a standard swivel low profile palmgren
http://www.palmgren.com/palmgren/pdf/machinetools7.pdf
i think if you tolerance your mill and use a quality vise these mill can kick some serious butt and dont take up much room
 
that palmgren looks good to me!
though, I do have a vice similar to the first one already...

When you say you use it for roughing in the blade, what kind of cutter are you using? (I assume you have it at an angle and are cutting bevels....)
 
yes i use it at an angle. i use a 1/2" morse 4 flute single end mill.its TiALN coated.i also use imco 4 flute solid carbide spector coated end mills. i like the spector coating bucause it performs well on high carbon steels. tnmike i like that vise.... i think ill pick one up
 
Good luck with the HF crap. I just tore down my lathe for the fourth time trying to get the belt to stay tight. Thats after replacing the belt and pulley that melted. This is my second lathe since the first one croaked after five months. Thier stuff is very poorly designed with inferior parts. Now one of the motor mount studs has stripped out so I will have to replace the entire unit with the warranty or just scrap it and buy this one. The tailstock is MT-2 so I allready have all the goodies for it.

http://www.southern-tool.com/store/jet_bd920_belt_drive_metal_working_lathe.html

The entire motor mount and tension adjustment is the most dumb ass set up I have ever seen. Just wait until you smoke a belt and pulley and then go to replace it, you will experience what I am talking about.

I will never buy another HF piece of equipment again!:barf:
 
i havent tried out their lathes(i have a 1952 craftsman) but my mill has made over 100 tattoo machines and several blades,plus numerous parts for my camaro and mustang and hasnt complained yet
 
B Finnigan said:
Good luck with the HF crap. I just tore down my lathe for the fourth time trying to get the belt to stay tight. Thats after replacing the belt and pulley that melted. This is my second lathe since the first one croaked after five months. Thier stuff is very poorly designed with inferior parts. Now one of the motor mount studs has stripped out so I will have to replace the entire unit with the warranty or just scrap it and buy this one. The tailstock is MT-2 so I allready have all the goodies for it.

http://www.southern-tool.com/store/jet_bd920_belt_drive_metal_working_lathe.html

The entire motor mount and tension adjustment is the most dumb ass set up I have ever seen. Just wait until you smoke a belt and pulley and then go to replace it, you will experience what I am talking about.

I will never buy another HF piece of equipment again!:barf:
Click to expand...

If you think your troubles are over when you buy the Jet 9x20 lathe, you are sadly mistaken, Mr. Finnigan. Since they are all made in the same factory, they all share the same problems. I have one of these Jets, and trust me, they are not worth the extra money you pay just to get the Jet name and the white paint. These lathes and mills from Sieg are considered "kits" and they should be systematically cleaned, deburred, and modified in order to make them function smoothly and accurately. I had to make some serious modifications to my lathe to get it accurate and to make it reliable.

I dont currently have one of these mini-mills, but I bought one for the company in which I was previously employed. I followed all the suggestions on the yahoo groups and websites, and it became a nice little machine for very little money. I have one on my list of things to get for my own shop. :thumbup:
 
9x20 is another "classic". http://bedair.org/9x20.html for what can and should be done with it :)

groups.yahoo.com has a group dedicated to it.

I personally have 7x10 that I converted, later on, to 7x14. No regrets
whatsover. Workhorse.

In me dreams I see X3 :) http://www.mini-lathe.com/X3_mill/X3rvw/X3.htm and a larger lathe (could use larger SOB (swing over bed)).

Rumor has it HF is soon to carry X3, that is already available from Grizz.
HF's gonna be cheaper + 20% off coupon ... one sweet deal :)
 
For those of you that have HF equipment that is working well I am glad for you. But if you have experienced what I have with my HF 7x10 then you would have the same attitude.
 
speaking of coupons....if anybody has a 10 or 20% off coupon for HF...I could use one....:o
 
Even if it is made in China it at least has metal gears and pulleys. The speed control is a belt pulley setup and not cheap electronics that burn out. All of my JET equipment I have now works great with zero problems. That makes me biased a bit. I just want it to work and not break unless it is my fault.
 
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