Mill selection

[stephenhParticipant @stephenh]

Sorry if this is a well flogged subject but having spent a lot of time researching this I am still undecided as to which of the following 3 small mills would best meet my needs.

Warco WM16, Sieg SX2.7L or Amadeal VM25LV.

The specs on these machines look very similar except that spindle stroke on both the Warco and Amadeal machines are stated as 50mm whereas on the SX2.7L it is quoted as 70mm.  To my, inexperienced, eye that seems to be quite significant and I am erring towards this machine for that single reason.  At the end of the day I am thinking that I really will not appreciate the significance of these specifications until I get a mill and get on with using it but my question to the experts on here is not which of these mills should I get (i appreciate that would probably generate a range of views) but rather am I misunderstanding/over-egging the potential benefit that the extra spindle travel on the SX2.7L might bring?

I don’t want to overthink this so any guidance gratefully received.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Just as important as travel is probably the available height under the spindle.  By the time you have added a vice and probably a collet chuck quite a lot of this has been eaten up!  I would much prefer a mill where the vertical feed can be applied using a Z-axis leadscrew when small amounts of feed are needed – worth checking that.  If the mill has a titling head, that would weigh against it in my view – you would probably never use it (angled cuts can be done in other ways) and it makes getting the cutter axis truly at right angle to the table harder.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Tend to agree with John Haine here. With many modern multi-tipped cutters (like shell Mills) taking a fair bit of space and extra few mm headroom is always a bonus.

Like most things in life, there is never a perfect answer to this question. At the end of the day its surprising how inventive we are when it comes to working around limitations – in fact its half the fun in my opinion.

Mike

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

To some extent what you intend to us ethe mill for will have a bearing one what is useful or not. Since I got a benchtop mill all my drilling has been done on that as it is a lot easier to accurately position holes as there is no need for marking out, punching and then locationg punch markes etc. So the bit of extra quil travel is useful as the mill becomes your main machine for drilling.

I would suggest that for any significant milling that you try and keep quill extension to a minumum as it helps with rigidity so in that case the longer travel will have less bearing. On lighter work say cutters below 3-4mm you are not going to be loading the machine much unless you get silly with depths of cut so in that case you can make use of the longer extension.

The SX2.7 (&L) also have the tapping feature which the others don’t. This can be useful if you tend to do a lot of tapping and it will cope with upto M10 and I would say don’t go smaller than M3 as there is no “feel” which may see smaller taps snap.

The SX2.7 (&L) has a fixed head where as the other two can tilt. In 20yrs of use and after making a lot of models I’ve never found the need to tilt the head, the work has always been able to be tilted and not all of those angled cuts could have easily been done with a tilt head but were easy with it kept vertical. The other thing with the tilt heads is that you need to watch the tram as a snatch can throw the head out and then you need to tram it all in again.

The Warco is a 2 speed machine so you will likely get some gear noise, the other two being single belt from motor to spindle will be quieter. Not sure if the Warco is brushed or brushless but the Brushles smotors have some more torque though the low ratio of the Warco may actually mean it has more spindle torque, hence the reason it can run a slightly lower wattage motor.

I think most members here would rate ARC as the nicest to deal with and of the other two I would go with Warco based on what I have bought from them in the past and what I have seen on the Amadeal stands when all used to go to shows.

If you have  alook in the workshop section of the site you will find a few articles I wrote using a standard length table SX2.7 and from that if you look through my Youtube there are others there.

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

As Jason says, you may get some gear noise from the Warco WM16.  I have the WM16B (2 speed belt drive) and so far it’s quiet and works just fine.  Although belt tensioning can be a bit fiddly.

[stephenhParticipant @stephenh]

Thanks all for your input. Very useful to me and much appreciated.  Am very much enjoying my transition from woodworking to machining metal but there is a lot to learn !

 

[Bo’sun]

On Bo’sun Said:

As Jason says, you may get some gear noise from the Warco WM16.  I have the WM16B (2 speed belt drive) and so far it’s quiet and works just fine.  Although belt tensioning can be a bit fiddly.

I also have the Warco 16B. Take note that it’s a 3MT spindle. Warco only seem to be listing the DRO version at the moment. The 55mm quill stroke hasn’t troubled me but I do have a conventional bench drill for larger stuff. The 16B has a bit more headroom than other milling machines of similar size, which might be useful if it’s your only drill since a chuck and, say, a 12mm drill will take up quite a lot of space.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

As always much depends on what the mill is used for.

My WM18 has a 70mm stroke, which I only know because I just measured it!  In the 10 years I’ve had the mill, I’ve not come close to using that much travel, mostly less than 50mm.  The quill is mounted in a head that moves 355mm which accommodates many jobs.  I don’t do deep boring.

Dave

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If you do find youself a bit vertically challenged then a few stub length drills can get you out of trouble, or simply use them rather than keep cranking the head up to get room for jobber length ones. The bonus is that if you ger split point ones such as the Dormer A002 they are rigid enough to not need a spot drill to start them of for the majority of work so also save time.

I have metric in 0.5mm steps plus the common tapping and reaming sizes plus a few old fractional banana ones that don’t see much use these days. I would say 90% of my drilling is done by these stub drills, jobbers just when the depth is needed or it’s an odd size.

[HuubParticipant @huub]

I have used the tilted head of my old milling machine sometimes. For rigidity reasons, I prefer a non tilting head.

My old (BF16) mill had a “small” (132/235 mm) table stroke. That has very often limited my work.

The 50 mm quill stroke of my old mill was sometimes limiting and my new mill also has a 50 mm quill stroke.

Free height under the head has very often limited my work. To have 60 mm more free head height, I chose the MK2 version in stead of the SK30 version for my new mill.

Rigidity, table stroke and Free head height are the most important features of my new mill.

[lukeama123Participant @lukeama123]

Firstly,

Jason thanks for your comments but the last time we done a show was over 10 years ago could be close to 15 years ago so think our machines our completely incomparable to then.

Secondly,

To the original poster Stephenh only advice i would give you is to contact all the companies your looking at before making a decision.

Regards

Luke

Amadeal Ltd

 

 

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

It seems to me that here is the basis of a series of articles in MEetc. Comparisons by users and owners can be very helpful to anyone looking to start in home engineering, or to up-grade inherited kit, etc. And of course, not just mills.

‘Factory’ comparisons tend to cover things which differ fom one version to another, of course, but not concentrating on usefulness for our work, and they tend to be written by real professional millers or naive journalists, and we mostly need help from neither.

Are you making notes, mr Editor?

Tim Stevens

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’m not sure if Mr Editor is even looking in.

“Comparisons” could be difficult as that would really need the writer to have more than one machine to compare.

As for “our work” that can vary wildly from a small model that can sit in your hand to a 1/3rd or 1/2 scale Traction engine, to a car being restored or parts for a small RC model, etc. the usefulness will very much depend on what the machine is used for.

Luke, I was comparing like with like at the time, I would expect other suppliers offerings to have also changed since then as the Chinese stuff has come a long way..

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