I am looking for recommendations on a new mid-size lathe and mill. I'm thinking that is going to mean benchtop.
This is hobby level stuff. Mostly aluminum, occasional steel, rarely stainless. I used my current machine to make some parts for my airplane. I started out with a used Harbor Freight Mini Lathe. That was too small. Then I found my current machine. Shoptask 3-in-1 BridgeMill. Size is about perfect. It would be nice to have a bit more room for milling but I can live with what I have there. But the chore of switching between lathe and mill is a pain.
I'm space limited so a floor standing mill and lathe won't fit.
For about the past 5 years I've been watching FaceBook Marketplace and Craigslist and eBay for a lathe and mill nearby. The problem is I'm in the Florida panhandle (AKA The Redneck Riviera). There's just nothing here. I see candidate lathes and mills all the time in Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, etc. But those are all about 5+ hours away.
If I see one for sale in say... Orlando. And if it's still available when I'm able to drag the trailer on a 5 hour trek to look at a it only to find out it's not what it was cracked up to be and then make the drive back home. So I think that leaves me with buying new (the new can be shipped and sometimes offer free shipping). I hate it, but in five years of looking the only thing that's come up nearby is a Bridgeport mill.
So for new mid-size machines, does anyone have suggestions? In looking around, about the only thing I'm seeing are Grizzly, Baleigh and Jet. Any experience with these or any other brands?
New mid-size lathe and mill?
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VelocityDuck
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:14 am
- Location: Panama City, FL
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shootnride
- Posts: 298
- Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:31 am
- Location: Sacramento, Ca.
Re: New mid-size lathe and mill?
I have no personal experience with this company, but I've noticed on another machinist forum that there seems to be a lot of satisfied customers for the Precision Matthews machines.
https://www.precisionmatthews.com/
Ted
https://www.precisionmatthews.com/
Ted
Some people raise the IQ of the room when they enter.........others when they leave.
Re: New mid-size lathe and mill?
And Grizzly.com is a quality company with excellent post-purchase support.
I have successfully used their equipment since the 1990s, with major mill and lathe purchase in 2016.
And I have zero financial interest in Grizzly.
RussN
I have successfully used their equipment since the 1990s, with major mill and lathe purchase in 2016.
And I have zero financial interest in Grizzly.
RussN
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Tom Miller
- Posts: 48
- Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:58 am
- Location: Sherwood Oregon
Re: New mid-size lathe and mill?
I have a Precision Mathews 11" lathe and 728VT mill and love both of them.
Tom
Tom
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VelocityDuck
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:14 am
- Location: Panama City, FL
Re: New mid-size lathe and mill?
I had forgotten about Precision Matthews. The 728VT looks pretty good. Unfortunately, it looks like they are out of stock/backordered on just about everything they offer.
Re: New mid-size lathe and mill?
Define mid size? And then give us some idea of what your budget is. Moore Tools make what I'd call a really nice mid size lathe although it's not a bench top, but I doubt few here would have the budget or accuracy requirements for one of those. Some fully rebuilt Shaublin lathes can be obtained from at least one machine tool re-builder in Europe, but they start at around $20-$25k + shipping. I suspect your not planning on spending anything like that.
Secondly and fwiw, it's a bit more complicated than just buying any lathe or mill just because it's available right now. Make up a list of what you refuse to do without. For a lathe then maximum swing, distance between centers, spindle taper or through hole size, spindle nose mount, a D1 type is obviously much better if you can get it, gear box or change gear, power cross feed or hand feed, single ph or 3 ph motor etc. The George Thomas books taught me how important having a tee slotted cross slide can be for doing line boring or even end work on longer components that can't be done on the mill. Every lathe I've bought I stepped up each time in size, and can confidently say with everything else being equal, the larger the machine is, the easier they are to get good, accurate and consistent parts.
With a mill it's even more complex. Tooling it will be your largest expense by far. A whole lot of new or used mill accessories are around and meant to be used on those BP sized mills and there clones. Yes there's smaller available, but it's something to be aware of and there's certainly not the selection, quality of the tooling or even variety. As an example, my 6" mill vises take multiple Allen head cap screws with the correct pitch spacing to fit the standard Bridgeport table slot dimensions. They make it real easy to use two or more vises side by side with no protruding hold down hardware. Ok most here won't need anything like that, but it's not even an option if my mill table wasn't already set up to do so. Adding at least an X axis power feed to a non Bridgeport or one of the clones isn't exactly simple unless there's one already made for that specific mill. For myself I wouldn't buy any mill without having the option of adding a direct bolt on power feed. And few of the bench top sized mills even offer one as an option. It isn't impossible to adapt something off the shelf, but it's not quick or very easy depending on your own skill level.
Then there's the table size and travel amounts for X,Y, the total available Z axis height which is extremely important, tee slot size for off the shelf hold down kits, gear head or step pulley drive. Both types will have have positives and negatives. Add to that a plain head or one with a built in powered spindle feeds for precision boring. And the same as the lathe for single or 3 ph power choices. With what I've seen with my mill I'd never go with single phase again. 220 V 3 phase with a VFD has no comparison to ANY single ph. drive. I personally think the 3 ph and VFD is more than worth the extra effort for wiring and the added cost for what it can do. But that's me and not you. There's also the spindle taper. In North America it's generally more expensive and tougher to find tooling for a Morse Taper spindle than R8. I've owned a mill with MT 3 and then R8, hands down R8 is the only way to go simply because it's cheaper, easier to find and releases much better with almost no hammering on the drawbar. And if you can't find what you want in R8, then you probably don't need it. Yes there's even better and larger spindle tapers, but for any bench top sized mill there would be very few made with maybe a 30 taper, and given the mills actual size, rigidity and horse power, then larger is probably of no real advantage over that R8. Tormach use what they call a TTS system that's based on and uses that R8 taper. A bit more expensive to set up a mill with, but much faster and easier to use. And definitely an option I'd consider if I ever thought I was going to add a dro in the future since it gives your tooling a known pre set Z axis position. It's also what I would have gone with had it been available when I bought my mill. Today I'd lose far too much of what I've already spent on my R8 tooling to go that route now. So in reality your going to have to do your own leg work to find something that fits what you want the equipment to be capable of. Once you've narrowed your list down to a few machines then most here can add any pros/cons about what your thinking of buying.
Having to buy the larger bench top sized machines isn't that restrictive if your short of space. I'm also dealing with that, but overall weight is my larger issue. I also think the factory stands the 11" swing or under lathes and comparable sized mills that can be order with them are in reality a waste of money given how flimsy there usually built to. For a lathe, there a real source of vibration, very hard to actually level a lathe into a true non twisted state and then stay where you adjust them to simply because those lathe stands aren't rigid enough to do so. There also poorly laid out for storage for the space they take up. For my 11" x 28" lathe I use a couple of these https://www.craftsman.com/products/stor ... ol-cabinet under it and bolted together with the castors removed. Depending on your room size and with a smaller bench top mill, I'd probably use a third one under one of those. There much more rigid with far more storage. And any wooden bench is going to move way too much just from normal humidity changes, so there in my opinion the better method for at least a bench top lathe.
When I ordered my last lathe the dealer didn't stock a few options that were available from the factory. So I special ordered what I wanted and waited almost 5 months for it to be built and shipped to North America. That extra time and the over 3,000 miles it then had to be shipped from the dealer to my location is almost meaningless if your planning on keeping the equipment long term if it also means your going to get what you really want and need. I actually looked around for roughly 2 years before finding the mill I did finally buy. And even then I had to ship it from New Jersey to the west coast of Canada because they were the only dealer at the time that even stocked them. That weight issue was the biggest hurdle and I did consider one of the bench top mills with the built in power feeds on the spindle. Price wise each was about the same. For myself and what I wanted, the BP clone worked out much better and I've not ever regretted that decision. It also depends on just how large of a bench top mill you want to get into. Anything with about 9"-10" Y axis and 20" - 22" or more X axis travel is still going to take up the same amount of room as one of these. https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-935ts-tv/ And it will do a whole lot a fixed column mill can't with all of the pluses I've already mentioned. I'm still guessing your not planning on spending that much.
Secondly and fwiw, it's a bit more complicated than just buying any lathe or mill just because it's available right now. Make up a list of what you refuse to do without. For a lathe then maximum swing, distance between centers, spindle taper or through hole size, spindle nose mount, a D1 type is obviously much better if you can get it, gear box or change gear, power cross feed or hand feed, single ph or 3 ph motor etc. The George Thomas books taught me how important having a tee slotted cross slide can be for doing line boring or even end work on longer components that can't be done on the mill. Every lathe I've bought I stepped up each time in size, and can confidently say with everything else being equal, the larger the machine is, the easier they are to get good, accurate and consistent parts.
With a mill it's even more complex. Tooling it will be your largest expense by far. A whole lot of new or used mill accessories are around and meant to be used on those BP sized mills and there clones. Yes there's smaller available, but it's something to be aware of and there's certainly not the selection, quality of the tooling or even variety. As an example, my 6" mill vises take multiple Allen head cap screws with the correct pitch spacing to fit the standard Bridgeport table slot dimensions. They make it real easy to use two or more vises side by side with no protruding hold down hardware. Ok most here won't need anything like that, but it's not even an option if my mill table wasn't already set up to do so. Adding at least an X axis power feed to a non Bridgeport or one of the clones isn't exactly simple unless there's one already made for that specific mill. For myself I wouldn't buy any mill without having the option of adding a direct bolt on power feed. And few of the bench top sized mills even offer one as an option. It isn't impossible to adapt something off the shelf, but it's not quick or very easy depending on your own skill level.
Then there's the table size and travel amounts for X,Y, the total available Z axis height which is extremely important, tee slot size for off the shelf hold down kits, gear head or step pulley drive. Both types will have have positives and negatives. Add to that a plain head or one with a built in powered spindle feeds for precision boring. And the same as the lathe for single or 3 ph power choices. With what I've seen with my mill I'd never go with single phase again. 220 V 3 phase with a VFD has no comparison to ANY single ph. drive. I personally think the 3 ph and VFD is more than worth the extra effort for wiring and the added cost for what it can do. But that's me and not you. There's also the spindle taper. In North America it's generally more expensive and tougher to find tooling for a Morse Taper spindle than R8. I've owned a mill with MT 3 and then R8, hands down R8 is the only way to go simply because it's cheaper, easier to find and releases much better with almost no hammering on the drawbar. And if you can't find what you want in R8, then you probably don't need it. Yes there's even better and larger spindle tapers, but for any bench top sized mill there would be very few made with maybe a 30 taper, and given the mills actual size, rigidity and horse power, then larger is probably of no real advantage over that R8. Tormach use what they call a TTS system that's based on and uses that R8 taper. A bit more expensive to set up a mill with, but much faster and easier to use. And definitely an option I'd consider if I ever thought I was going to add a dro in the future since it gives your tooling a known pre set Z axis position. It's also what I would have gone with had it been available when I bought my mill. Today I'd lose far too much of what I've already spent on my R8 tooling to go that route now. So in reality your going to have to do your own leg work to find something that fits what you want the equipment to be capable of. Once you've narrowed your list down to a few machines then most here can add any pros/cons about what your thinking of buying.
Having to buy the larger bench top sized machines isn't that restrictive if your short of space. I'm also dealing with that, but overall weight is my larger issue. I also think the factory stands the 11" swing or under lathes and comparable sized mills that can be order with them are in reality a waste of money given how flimsy there usually built to. For a lathe, there a real source of vibration, very hard to actually level a lathe into a true non twisted state and then stay where you adjust them to simply because those lathe stands aren't rigid enough to do so. There also poorly laid out for storage for the space they take up. For my 11" x 28" lathe I use a couple of these https://www.craftsman.com/products/stor ... ol-cabinet under it and bolted together with the castors removed. Depending on your room size and with a smaller bench top mill, I'd probably use a third one under one of those. There much more rigid with far more storage. And any wooden bench is going to move way too much just from normal humidity changes, so there in my opinion the better method for at least a bench top lathe.
When I ordered my last lathe the dealer didn't stock a few options that were available from the factory. So I special ordered what I wanted and waited almost 5 months for it to be built and shipped to North America. That extra time and the over 3,000 miles it then had to be shipped from the dealer to my location is almost meaningless if your planning on keeping the equipment long term if it also means your going to get what you really want and need. I actually looked around for roughly 2 years before finding the mill I did finally buy. And even then I had to ship it from New Jersey to the west coast of Canada because they were the only dealer at the time that even stocked them. That weight issue was the biggest hurdle and I did consider one of the bench top mills with the built in power feeds on the spindle. Price wise each was about the same. For myself and what I wanted, the BP clone worked out much better and I've not ever regretted that decision. It also depends on just how large of a bench top mill you want to get into. Anything with about 9"-10" Y axis and 20" - 22" or more X axis travel is still going to take up the same amount of room as one of these. https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-935ts-tv/ And it will do a whole lot a fixed column mill can't with all of the pluses I've already mentioned. I'm still guessing your not planning on spending that much.