Cheap milling machine
Turbo Mini Forums

Now ideally i want to get myself a bridgeport but i was wondering if anyone had used on of these:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/...thes-milldrills

i want a drill press so thought for about £75 extra i could get this? Its only to make brackets and things, mill odd flats etc. certainly no precision stuff.

i've got a colchester triumph lathe, and as i say, at some point will buy a birdgeport but i thought this might be neat?

Machinemart have a VAT free day thursday night so thats a good chunk off, comes out at £219

we have on of the clarke lathes with the milliing bit on, its pretty shite.

They don't look rigid enough TBH.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fusion-Fabri..._homepage_panel

www.fusionfabs.co.uk



1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

Edited by Rod S on 21st Apr, 2008.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

yep,

thats the puppy, as you say the lathe is ok, especially if you adust all the backlash out, but the mill is crap, we had to mod ours to get it any wher near usable.

i have a blue clarke lathe, and it's fine when it's all set up. I use a vertical slide on it for milling.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

paul, some of them have a threaded boss that's in 2 halves. clamping them up harder brings some of the threads closer together

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

to be honest i thought as much!

oh well, just stick the money towards a bridgeport then i guess. luckily i have 3 phase in my dads workshop

yep on the clark under the movable bed there is a bronse/brass threaded thing that has a slit in it so you can take up the slack,

also there are allen head screws in the side with shims that can be adjusted.

also where the handles/wheels are mounted there are screws that hold the bearings in place, these can work loose giving extra movement.

Its all basic stuff, just pull it apart and you'll naturally reassemble it properly.

Yes, had a look.

Seems I have to release the end of the cross slide screw and then unwind the cross slide right out to get at the threaded part.

Apologies for thread jacking.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Looks like I need to adjust mine then as well.....

Apart from thread jacking, the Clarke stuff is very basic - Chinese (really) so takes a bit of getting used to and "improving" where you want, but is well over-advertised for what they say it can do...

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I purchased a secondhand Dore Westbury mill a few months ago for £100. These are a bit bigger than the mill you have pictured, which is a Sieg X1- they sell them under a variety of different brands, Chester, Warco, Axminster etc.



The Dore Westbury was a kit of machined castings supplied in the 60's and 70's for model engineers to build a small workshop mill with the aid of a Myford ML7. It's a nice little mill for the money, and better than the chinese imports. The latter effectively killed off the Dore Westbury, as the castings cost more than a complete machine from China.

I'm converting it to cnc. The machine had a bit of wear in the slides and some backlash in the Acme threaded screws.
CNC requires zero backlash to be effective, but I didn't fancy forking out for ground ballscrews, so needed a cheap alternative.

I have moulded some plastic lead nuts using offcuts of water board mains pipe (the blue stuff). The plastic is very low melting point, and goes like wax when you apply a paint stripper heat gun. I pushed this around the thread with a wooden mould- the result is a formed in place thread which is a perfect mould of the thread. - this has removed all the backlash in the screws, and the thread is smooth in action.

I also fitted acetal gib strips on the slides which reduces friction, and takes up any slight wear.

Andy

Edited by Andymini on 21st Apr, 2008.

You can get single phase bridgeports you know iain. Im sure ours is. Plugs into the wall anyway.

If i were you, Id get a bridgeport over one of those clarke ones.

Back once again like a renegade master

yeah but i have 3 phase so you find they are usually cheaper.

these are cheap i think ian .

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

If a 3 phase bridgeport comes up, do you want me to let you know?

Back once again like a renegade master

not at the minute mate, unless its really cheap (£500ish) as i'm moving house so i'm skint!

This might interset you Iain,
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SINGLE-PHASE-PALLAS-...1QQcmdZViewItem

good spot

its located in lincoln where i'm just moving too as well!