What do you guys think about this vertical mill?

That's just like mine. I love it. Not too big and not too small. I think you will enjoy it. Get lot's of help to move it. I tore mine down and 2 guys could do it. Had it back up in a day. The machine is the cheap purchase. It is the tooling that costs.
 
Golly, $999.00. That seems to be a lot of $$ for cutting slots. We have a large floor model Enco, but I still usually do my slots myself. It's not really hard to mark a piece of material, drill several holes (use a sharp metal working chisel to mark where the punch marks will go, perfect line-up that way) then take some very inexpensive files (Lowes, about 5 or 6 in one $19.00 pack, all kinds of surfaces, last a good while, the name says Nickelson, but is surely a Western rim product. There are flats, curved, round, triangular, square, and something else).
Sometimes I think that it takes me longer to set up and cut a tang slot with the Enco mill, than to do it by hand. Hey, I'm the type that even likes to sand, so I'm a hopeless case anyway!
 
rashid11 said:
for this money, do consider Sieg X3 (HF or Grizzly).
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I know... But I was looking at the convenience of not having to order it. I need to look around the local area to see if somebody else has a Sieg so I do not have to pay for shipping.
 
What I consider a problem with these type of mills is that if you need to raise the head on the column during a job you will have too re-center the quill on your work. I believe that the square column mills (such as the Sieg X3) do not have this problem.

This unit, from the same website you listed, has this one that has a dovetailed column.

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I have one in the shop, and it is a major pita! Not rigid, impossible to re index when switching from drill bit to end mill. Tends to wonder in the cut of harder material. Fine for brass, and nickel silver. Not good for deep cuts in 416 stainless. Mine has a power feed, an I'm needing to get rid of it. I bought a Grizzly just light enough to fit into the shop. I followed the advice of Bob Loveless, Jim Merritt, and Kit Carson. Now that I have a knee mill, I would never go back. You can learn a lot at yahoo groups 6x26 milling machines. Mike
 
In me book, it breaks down like this:

1. A guy with money and solid concrete floor easily accesibe WS: gets a new Bport (clone)

2. A guy w/o much money , but with solid concrete floor easily accesibe WS: gets a used Bport (clone)

3. A guy w/o much space in WS or pussy-whipped guy with WS in the basement , with or w/o much money: gets X3

There also are people that get RF45 clone (some of those are mighty fine machines, with giant work envelopes, plenty power and rigidity), mini-mills,
Sherlines . Some folx are crazy about CNCing their mills, some are hand-cranking model engineers .

What I'd stay away from are the round column drill/mills . Nowdays, when X3 has filled the giant void between 100LB mini-mill and 800lb RF45 clones, it is the mill to get . Unless you have a need to occasionally true-up 8 cyl engine blocks
 
rashid11 said:
What I'd stay away from are the round column drill/mills . Nowdays, when X3 has filled the giant void between 100LB mini-mill and 800lb RF45 clones, it is the mill to get . Unless you have a need to occasionally true-up 8 cyl engine blocks
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I never thought of the round column post being a problem. Wow, glad the wife put the kybash on that purchase. If it werent for her, I would have the thing yesterday. We were sitting at lunch on thursday, and she just out of the blue looked at me and said, lets go get a vertcal mill, I know you have been wanting one!! I ultimately ended up telling her I needed time to think about what I wanted. Then yesterday she said she wanted to wait till our anniversary (end of July). Sounds like the SX3 will definately be the way to go. Thanks for the help guys.
 
Mike,

I had the problem with wandering cuts, especially on harder materials, until I started locking the gibs. That pretty much took care of that problem. When I'm rich and famous and learn what I'm doing, I'll get a knee mill.

Gene
 
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