Mini Milling Machine

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Smith 1220 series are ok..they don't compare to a Bridgeport, but will get the job done if you adj the slop and spend some time on setup. They advertise .001 tolerance iirc; sure, under ideal setup.

I'm not a machinist, but have tinkered...just practice and hog out any metal with endmills, so the final cut doesn't have to remove much material.
 
Schmeky,

That's clearly a better machine. The Z axis control is a more reliable and accurate way to set depth of cutting than moving the spindle up and down, even on a Bridgeport. So to see a fairly accurate way to do that on this one is encouraging. The .001" markoffs on the dials is much better than their previous metric conversion since that's what you'd most often be using. You begin to think in thousandths and tenths of thousands and you're getting there. (You'll find that it improves woodworking too, if you happen to do any of that.)

It looks like it's got more room between the spindle and the bed. As I was describing about the little lathes there's got to be room for all the holding devices - vises, indexers, rotary tables, etc, and etc. and the cutter holders with cutters or you can't do much at all. Just think about the length of a drill bit in a drill chuck. What, About 7" at least? With that 7" hanging down toward the table what can you put under it to be drilled? Melba Toast? :) The reason machines are in different sizes is to work on bigger and bigger parts that need machining. To use lathes again for example, a lathe of 7" x 10" (the first China imported ones) means that it can turn a piece no larger than 7" in diameter and no longer than 10" long. The sizes never include the holding devices. Even on one of those little lathes the 3 jaw chuck is a good 2" front to back or more and that has to be subtracted from the 10" capacity. So now you get 8". The other end called the tailstock needs a center that protrudes from the stock shaft at least 1" and usually more. Now you're down to a workpiece of no more than 7" long. The toolholder and the lathe saddle take up more of that and the saddle can only move the cutter between the two ends minus it's own width. The Chinese 7" x 10" gives a user a maximum of some 2" of turning room. You'd not be able to turn down a 6 penny nail in one of those. See what I mean? The machines seem great as they stand there. Some people think they're cute. But you and I know that the point of the whole thing is to work on something that is to be put into the machine and the little guys have to say "Sorry, no room" to anything larger than the top half of a ballpoint pen.

You have to look at the little mills with an eye toward how much can they REALLY mill once all of whatever setup fixturing is in place, and this more expensive one looks like a far better choice as far as that aspect goes.

One of the things that kept me away from the other little mill is the way it tilts the column to tilt the cutter. I just couldn't be convinced that that mechanism could be locked in position with enough strength to do a really fine cut. This bigger one doesn't do that, and if there's room between the table and the spindle to set up a sineplate or other means of tilting the piece being worked on then the machine only has to hold the cutter solidly vertically in place. That's maybe the biggest advantage of a knee mill like the Bridgeport. It's got room to move the workpiece and this one looks like it's got some too.

This one costs twice as much, weighs twice as much or more, and is still Chinese. There are a lot of opinions pro and against as I'm sure you've seen but I think that these machines have come quite a ways from the first offerings and some of them are downright good.

Any machining is less a matter of the machine and more the work practices and ingenuity of the person doing the machining. Ken Mays above has given a pretty good demonstration of what an inventive person can do even within the limitations of his machine tools and pocketbook. Look around the net and you can find other people who have accomplished near miracles with seemingly inadequate tools. They're out there proving that there's lots of ways to skin the cat.

I'm gonna' tell you straight out and from experience that you can not buy your way into good results with home machine tools. I'm saying this because I've figured out that plenty of other people would have gotten a lot more out of the machines I own than I've had the inventiveness to do. You've got to look inside and decide about that for yourself.
 
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krs,

Thank for your thoughtful response. You've been a great source of good information on this topic.

I just got a response from Ken Mays and he indicated a dovetail is well within the mini-mills capabilities. He's cut several sight dovetails with no problems. He said the mini-mills HP (1/2) is not a limitation for cutting dovetails, however, I know the more HP the better, just as structural rigidity is crucial for accurate, clean cuts.

My concern is the introductory models have only 2 speeds , 1,100 and 2,500rpm at the spindle. I would prefer more speed ranges. I'm going to check out the current crop of mills carefully before I do anything.
 
Just to drive everyone here nuts, have you thought about a good used shaper? They are the cat's meow for cutting this sort of slot.
 
Schmeky, those two speeds two speed RANGES, as in:
This mini mill/drill machine has two speed ranges: 0 to 1100 RPM and 0 to 2500 RPM—great for different thicknesses and types of material.
Click to expand...
That's right out of the HF description of their $499, mini-mill.

Those machines use a DC motor that can run from stop continuously up to max speed without overheating their motors. It's a BIG advantage and one that I've thought of converting my South Bend lathe to be able to do. I have a variable drive running my 3 phase motor on the lathe but worry over low speed use burning up the motor. Either way it beats changing pulleys all to hell to have variable speeds on a machine tool.



camp gunner,
I sold a 7" South Bend shaper not long ago. I bought it, rebuilt it, and then couldn't find much use for it. I'll admit that it probably would have gotten more play if I hadn't bought my Bridgeport mill, but because the BP could do most of the cuts that a shaper specializes in I just didn't need the shaper. WHAT A NEAT MACHINE IT WAS! There was something about the rube goldberg-ish way it operated that fascinated me, fascinated my wife, and fascinated any kids that came by. Sometimes I find myself wishing I'd have kept it.
 
Let me give you some quick back ground: I served an apprenticeship and retired as a journeyman die maker. Having said that, shop around and find yourself a good used Bridgeport. Yes, it will cost you - but with the economy being what it is, you can find some great deals. Besides the quality and ability of the machine, there are two very good reasons for getting one over a cheaper machine. One is resale, should you ever want to sell it, and the other is parts availability. Try to get parts for some Chinese imports can range from frustrating to impossible.

The next major expense will be tools. End mills and cutters are downright expensive. It's like buying a computer: you think your done spending money and then you realize you have to buy software. One way to save money on cutters is to buy them resharpened.

One last piece of advice: Never - never - never operate a mill without wearing safety glasses! No if's, and's or but's. You may think 'this cut will only take a second', but that second is also all it takes to stick the piece of a broken cutter in your eye. Eyes can be 'sympathetic' meaning you can damage one and go blind in both.
 
Tom,

The recommendation of a Bridgeport machine is appreciated and has been made several times in the thread.

I have a 1983 Bridgeport 2hp Series 1 with variable speed, x-axis feed, and DRO. It's a great machine, no doubt about it.

BUT...it's a big thing for a homeowner to find room for as it's footprint is some 6' x 8'. Mine weighed in at 2200 lbs without the table feed or DRO attached. I bought it from Detroit and at the time it was $500. to get to a depot where I put it on my trailer, or the shipper did with a crane, and I had to give another $100. for that. I'm sure the shipping prices are much higher now as that was in 2001. Once home it took a great deal of straining my 8 ton cherrypicker to just get it on the ground. My wife and I then used pipe rollers to inch it into my shop and into it's current location. Thank goodness for the level cement driveway and shop floor! For someone who does not have a truck and trailer the cost of getting a machine this size home from the local shipping terminal and into location can easily be $1000. or more if people are hired to do the job.

Lots of folks simply don't have the room for a mill the size of a Bridgeport in the first place.

Parts for the Bridgeport are not easy to find now that the machine is no longer a mainstay in industrial use, and they are very expensive. I bought a good machine and have had no real problems with it, but other people in machining forums have had less luck with theirs bought in this time of low priced manual machine tools. Those low prices are for machines that have been depreciated out in professional use where they may have run for twenty years day in and day out. They're tired machines for the most part. When they break down, as they ultimately must, it's no small thing to repair them. It takes room around the machine, and above it, to remove the head with a crane, for example. Try that alongside your wife's Taurus out in the garage.

On the other hand, these small machines can be handled by most anyone with a friend willing to drop by for a few minutes of lifting and a beer. The machines can be completely disassembled on a large kitchen table, and parts for the little Chinese tools are very easy to find and are quite inexpensive, especially when compared to Bridgeport parts. Whole businesses have arisen around supplying the needs of home shop or hobby machinists now and it's really an active enthusiastic bunch of people doing it. There's a guy in Pasedena, CA who has just about any part for any of these little machines in stock ready to ship: http://www.littlemachineshop.com/.

Another factor that's very important to mention is that just about all of the small machines plug into the wall - run fine on household 110 current. Any machine surplused out of industrial or small shop use will run on 3 phase 220 volt at least. Not everyone even has single phase 220 wired in but for those who do the problem of phase conversion becomes a big issue. There are several ways to deal with it and none of them are free.

For better or worse, the small Chinese maching tools have opened up the world of hobby machining to people who for one reason or another could never consider such a thing in the past. Sure, I remember drooling over catalog ads for Smithy machines but I could never afford one. I'm not old enough to have been able to buy any of the Atlas/Craftsman tools out of the Sears catalog but I'm old enough to have looked at them and one of my uncles had a full miniature shop in the 1950's with which he made prototypes of a bunch of gizmos that he was able to patent and sell to manufacturers.

So yeah, it's standard advise given in forums all over the net when the subject comes up - "Buy a Bridgeport", inevitably. I've never seen anyone giving that advise ask first whether the recipient has room for one, has the ability or desire to deal with a fun tool that's as heavy as a car, can power it up, or whether the person has any prior experience in machining to keep such a machine from being anything other than a strange and awesome monstrosity.

Nope, it's just "Buy a Bridgeport", nothing else will do.
 
I am a hobbiest, a compulsive tinkerer, and a gun enthusiast. I worked my my way through college working part-time in a machine shop. I was a floor sweeper and ran a slotting machine during the holidays. I was allowed to rough cut (prep) on a lathe and did some grinding as well. One of my best friends back then ran a Bridgeport and he helped me make some shift "dogs" for a motorcycle transmission I was fixing since I was to poor to buy the parts.

I always loved that milling machine. I now find myself on an ever increasing "need" curve with my pistols and could occupy myself for hours if I had my own small mill. Those that own these mini-mills have given me the impression that even though they are limited in size and power, they are an affordable way to do something I might not have ever been able to do otherwise.

The vast majority of industrial machines are indeed three-phase 230/460. Not an option for the home hobbiest. My projects will be small and just for me, if it's something large I'll have to farm it out.

I have learned a tremendous amount from this thread and I am grateful to all that have posted.
 
Depends on what you mean by a mini-mill. Most of the ones for sale are made by Sieg. There are three basic models, the largest is the x3
http://www.siegind.com/Products/br-x3-lathe.htm
The small one is useful only for small work with brass and aluminum. It will cut steel but it will take you forever to do anything useful.
I have the x2 which is the one in the middle. I haven't had any problems with it as long as I take light cuts and use sharp tools. Haven't tried cutting a dovetail yet but figure I could do it if I had to.
 
I have both the X2 and X3 super mini mills. If you have the space and power requirements for a full size machine, go for it. If you want to work on small objects and don't want to take up any space the mini's well do the job. You just can't make heavy cuts.
My X2 runs R8 carbide end mills with no problem. One mod you well want to do is convert to belt drive on the X2. You need to spend some time cleaning up the out of box machine, but with a little work they can be vary dependable. I have cut several dovetails, just take small cuts and it's fine. I have mine set up with a three axis DRO, I don't know how I did with out it.
The X3 is a much nicer machine but cost three times as much. There is a lot of on-line info on setting these up and DIY improvements you can do.
Good place to buy tooling is littlemachineshop.com
Check out minimill.com and minilathe.com

Good comments krs!
 
KRS, I noticed I posted a 10" center and wanted to type 19" between centers for using with an added milling attachment.
For cutting dovetails on any handgun slide this arrangement is more than adequate, for cutting angles and circles a flat table vertical mill is a far better choice.

I said to consider a combo mill/lathe and said nothing about a Chinese made version of which I totally agree are less than adequate for most heavy work.

Digital readouts are a good thing, especially if your eyesight is getting bad.
I retired my analog micrometers and calipers long ago for the same reason.
 
Onmilo,

I'm glad you've clarified that about the 10" lathe. I've read plenty of your previous posts and have seen you give advise that makes a lot of sense and obviously comes from long experience so that one really surprised me.

I had a 7" x 12" lathe and I didn't keep it very long after realizing that once it was setup and ready to turn something it couldn't do much better than a 2" pass, if that much. So the idea of a mill attachment on an even shorter bed length was too much for me to let stand. Yes, 19" would make it possible, in fact a mill attachment was one of the accessories offered for the Atlas 6" x 18" lathe.
 
Wanted to again thank everyone for their input. I just ordered the Seig X2 mini-milling machine. The mill, a 42 piece clamping kit, and shipping delivered to my door is $572.00.

Now I need some end mills, dovetail cutters, fly cutters, a DRO, . . . . . . . :eek:
 
The world is in trouble now!! :)

No kidding Schmeky, you sound like the kind of guy who'll find a million uses for that mill. Start hanging around the mini machining forums and you'll find people who are more than willing to give you any help they can whenever questions come up. It's really a pretty amazing world when I stop and set back to think about it - people all over the world finding ways to make things you'd think were impossible and doing first rate jobs of it too. There are problems and those bring solutions - like I think I said above it's a world of proving that there are lots of ways to skin cats.

That little mill can lead you into areas you never thought to go. Try to hold off ideas about CNC conversions at least until you've gotten used to the machine and have some grounding in making chips fly. That stuff gets expensive fast but if you're electical/electronics inclined and decide to look into it think about some people out there who have built CNC into their miniature machines, put a glass doored cabinet around it, and will post photos of the cabinet filled so full of metal chips that you can't see the machine that cut them!

I'd post you some links to follow but it's been a few years since I was looking at them so I don't know if they'd be what they used to be. I'll try to check some of them later today but if I don't bring some they won't be hard to find with a quick google search.

The little machine shop store is already posted and I've just looked to see that Varmint Al is still kickin' and posting. His site was always a useful resource and if he hasn't gone clean round the bend it probably still is: http://www.varmintal.com/alink.htm#Mini-Lathe/

Go slow buying tooling until you can get an idea of what works and what doesn't as well as what YOU need to do whatever you have in mind.

Have fun, above all!
 
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Oh, Brownell's has gun dovetail cutters but they're all single ended. The little carbides you need run about $65. each.

EGW sells one carbide cutter that has the two most commonly needed angles, 60 and 65 degrees, one on each end and his cutter was $67. a couple of weeks ago.

Carbide cutters are brittle and the dovetails break just like that if you make a mistake, so you might not want to dive right into your slide when the machine arrives, OK?

The HSS (high speed steel) cutters will do the job but on a slide they'll dull pretty quickly and halfway through the cut the sound will change and you'll see that instead of cutting you're pushing steel out of the way. Don't want that - slides aren't cheap.

That's all, I promise. I could run on and on, looks like :)
 
check out enco & msc. before i even cranked up my mini mill, i installed a belt drive, & i would recommend you do the same to save yourself some aggravation. have a gallon of mineral spirits on hand when you unpack it :)
http://www.stirlingsteele.com/beltdrive.html
BW_beltdrive.jpg
 
krs,

I've already found the best way to cut a .330x60x.070 sight dovetail. Use a 1/4" end mill for a center rough cut, then cut the dovetails on each side of the 1/4" cut. I'm dangerous now!

gwillys,

Might do this later on in the summer, I've read up on these conversions and I understand if your cutter bites, you can strip out the drive gears. The belt drive conversion keeps this from happening. Wonder how they made that belt drive conversion;)?
 
belt drive also makes it a lot quieter. & getcha a surge protector for it. i've milled a little steel with it, and it did ok. see if msc will send you the big book. have fun tramming ;)

how are you going to handle coolant?
 
You got it!

The small dovetail mills necessarily have skinny little necks and so won't tolerate much side load and anything you do to lighten their part of the work will help keep them with you.

That small neck gives a head start in grinding a broken dovetail cutter to a fine point that you can use chucked in the mill to mark or centerpunch other projects.

Are you good at math? :)
 
gwillys,

I've thought about that. I may go ahead and spring for a pump. I know a steady flow of coolant/lubricant is an absolute must.

krs,

Yea, I'm fine with the math. My brother was a master machinst years ago (ran CNC lathes). If I need a thousands refresher, he'll help. I have a set of mic's (good one's, Mitotoyos, up to 5-6"), a set of bore mic's, a depth mic, I also have the standards for mic calibration, and a good dial indicator with magnetic base and clamp-on hardware.

There's other items I'll know I'll need; going to wait and see.
 
gwillhys,

The .001" dials are a must for me. I'll save your link and see what's on the X2 when it arrives. Looking at carbide end mills on Ebay presently and a combo 60/65 degree dovetail.

Any good sources for carbide cutters? I'll get more/better/cleaner cuts with carbide.

krs,

Excellent point on the weak area on the dovetails, I never thought of that, but I see your point. Also a great idea on how to recycle a broken dovetail. You guys know your stuff.
 
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