I'm now the proud owner of this suitably vintage milling machine and apart from the colour (which may or may not suit your taste) it appears to have been very well cared for and cuts surprisingly well. I've taken a few test cuts using 1/2" end mill in mild steel and the cutting was smooth and clean, something I didn't really expect as I'm used to a much larger machine (3 HP SEMCO at work).

The machine does not use a draw bar and I'm unfamiliar with the collets which I'm guessing may be difficult to source. It came with quite a lot of tooling including a few 1/4" and 1/2" collets. For smaller tooling I'm wondering about making some custom tool holders with a fixing grub screw (grinding a flat on the tool).

All comments welcome (including what colour I should paint it).

Brian

Having just checked what I actually possess, I need to correct what I stated earlier. I have one each of 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" collets. The milling machine also came with a good amount of end mills — I'd guess at about 100+ which should keep me going a while.

I don't have any metric collets, which may or may not be a problem.

The well-known Lathes website states the following:

the spindle accepted standard dead-length Crawford collets (1.5" long with capacities ranging from 1/8" to 1/2" )

Is this something I could obtain without selling a kidney? 

Edited By AJAX on 04/10/2021 21:25:33

I don't know whether I could make one of those collets but I'm sure I could turn something that would be useful. I did actually enquire about getting collets made (or adapted) and the price was not unreasonable but more than I'd like to pay now. I'm still wondering whether I can't make an ER collet adapter than fits on the spindle nose.