Which mini mill?

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

Sorry if it’s been done to death 🙂

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

Looking for a small milling machine, in my mind its a huge monster I need, but space and funds are lacking so a small bench mounted mill is about all im going to get.

Something to complement my SPG2109 lathe. Something that will fit onto a 600 deep kitchen counter type of space. I have the width but the depth is lacking.

Searched and found a lot of threads that mention Warco, Chester, SPG, Amadeal and Weiss amongst others.

I bought the lathe from SPG and various bits and pieces from Amadeal, likt the QCTP etc.

They both sell similar machines with a few variations. How do you choose which one?

Looking at the cheapest machines they sell but i dont want to buy something that then needs an upgrade which will cost more than the next machine in the lineup.

SPG start at £440 and the next one up is a spindle lock, I assumed (wrongly)? that was a lock when changing the tool? Stops it rotating when removing the tool instead of needing 2 spanners etc? I found a post that mentioned it locked the downward axis?

I dont want to buy a more expensive machine and leave my pockets empty for tooling. I know how much i spent on bits and bobs after buying the lather and it soon added up.

Suggestions?

Thanks.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

subject has probably been done to death in many previous posts as depends on what you want it for.

your lathe has 2MT tailstock so any tools here would fit an SX1 type mininmill – the larger Sieg machines are MT3 though buying collets + relevant chuck means then can be used on both lathe + mill. All would fit on a standard kitchen worksurface – I have your lathe badged as a Warco WM180 + also a super X1L (longbed) from ARCEuro tho in retrospect an SX3 would have been nicer but this is 3x the price of the SX1 and near twice what I paid for a well tooled lathe

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Frances IoM on 02/05/2016 09:35:10:
super X1L (longbed) from ARCEuro tho in retrospect an SX3 would have been nicer but this is 3x the price of the SX1 and near twice what I paid for a well tooled lathe

The SX2P might be a good compromise between those two. I would avoid the ones with the tilting column as they are difficult to align and a bit too flexible. Not far from your budget Dave.

Russell.

[Rod NeepParticipant @rodneep80388]

Posted by Russell Eberhardt on 02/05/2016 10:48:16:

Posted by Frances IoM on 02/05/2016 09:35:10:
super X1L (longbed) from ARCEuro tho in retrospect an SX3 would have been nicer but this is 3x the price of the SX1 and near twice what I paid for a well tooled lathe

The SX2P might be a good compromise between those two. I would avoid the ones with the tilting column as they are difficult to align and a bit too flexible. Not far from your budget Dave.

Russell.

I have just been through the same thought process, (after reading lots on here) and settled on buying the SIEG Super X2P HiTorque Mill – Belt Drive with Brushless Motor from ARC Euro. One of the factors in my choice was that I bought the version with the 3MT as I already have a 3MT ER32 collet set for my lathe, which saves having to spend one lump of money on the "extras", which can add up considerably.

I am very pleased with the SIEG…. and it is so quiet!

Rod

[Jonathan MeadParticipant @jonathanmead91773]

I have recently been through this process, and ended up buying a Warco WM14. For me this was the best balance of size, features and price. I looked very hard at the Sieg/ Axminster SX-2 mills, but decided that a machine with a leadscrew adjustment for the head and a separate quill was the better option for me. I'm very pleased with my choice so far and the WM14 is well suited for the type of work that I'm doing. The captive drawbar was an unexpected bonus. I would have liked a brushless motor machine, but as with all things, some compromise was needed.

[David lawrence 3Participant @davidlawrence3]

I have the Warco wm14 and its a great mill, I spent about a year looking at all the mills around £ 700.00 and I wish it came with a 3MT but that's the only downside. I also bought the new Warco digital readouts for about £300.00 and they are worth it. ne thing to be aware of on my all metric machine is that's its supplied and fitted with 3/8" drawbar and drill chuck so I managed to jammed it up when I put 10mm metric collect holder in, my mistake. I bought a engine hoist off ebay for £ 110.00 for move and lift the thing which has been a good move rather than hiring as I moved the mill from a damp garage to a small but dry basement workshop.

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

Yeah i did find a lot of older threads where Weiss and a few other machines/sellers were mentioned but the Weiss website has not been updated for quite a while.

The machine's spec's also seem to change over the time and some do not mention

all the features they have. X1LP doesnt mention tilting.

For some reason i don't like the look of the X1L but it appears to fit the bill, motor is only 150w though, is

that an issue? X1LP is 250w but as above does it tilt?

WM12 has a 600w motor and cheaper than the WM14 but only 250mm travel instead of the WM14 330mm.

MT3 would be a bonus, same as the headstock in my lathe.

 

Any budget ones belt driven which appears to preferred.

 

Thanks

 

 

Edited By Dave Smith the 16th on 02/05/2016 19:32:21

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I also have a WM14 and have been very pleased with it has does everything I wanted to do, would have liked a bigger machine but like others space is restricted, I also have an Adcock &Shipley horizontal which does bigger jobs

Mick

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

the X1LP does not tilt – an advantage as more rigid column and you don’t have the real hassle of realigning column if you drill the 1 angled hole (but your usage my require this feature – if so the warco range might fit better)
re power yes the 150W is a limitation the belt driven X1LP avoids the gear breakage when you push it over the limit (tho the sacrificial nylon gear is only a couple of pounds to buy)

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Dave Smith the 16th on 02/05/2016 02:48:14:

I dont want to buy a more expensive machine and leave my pockets empty for tooling.

I know that sounds obvious and probably most of us here have taken the same tack but I don't know that it's always the best way.

If I had mine to do again I'd buy the best machine I could get (***). Yes. you need tooling to get started but a few cutters, a holder and a clamping kit doesn't cost a lot and will get you started into all kinds of things. Then you can buy more tooling as you go along as you find out what *you* need and as funds build up again.

(***) Easy for me to say – I've already got lots of tooling

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

These things are designed to empty my pockets

I knew when buying the lathe that there will be quite an outlay over the price of the machine to get a few things that i will need. 4 jaw chuck and knurling tools and decent tools. Initially i bought that cheap set of 30? carbide bits that im guessing a lot of people bought because they were cheap and throwaway items if you did something silly

So my £600 lathe was over £1000 just adding a few tools, i expected that.

3D printer was £400 and i spend another £200 on filament. I sort of expected that and didnt need to buy that much but i wanted a range of colours.

Money is tight at the moment though, so i wont have hundreds of pounds spare for all the extra's i (need) I always (need) and not just want something

Will the X1LP and no tilting be an issue? SX2P doesnt mention tilting either?

The WM15 shows a 500mm table, but the travel is still only 330mm? Same as the smaller machines with a 400mm table?

Thanks

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

I've had a Sieg X2 for about 10 years. The tilting capability is a pain in the neck, I set mine up as accurately as I could when it was new, and subsequently check it about two or three times a year. I have NEVER used the tilting facility, checking and adjusting is easy but very boring. For any angled holes or whatever I have a small tilting vice that works well.

If I was buying a new machine now I would probably get a Sieg SX2P.

Best of luck!!

cheers

Bill

[HowiParticipant @howi]

The SX2P was my choice to match my Amadeal AM209vg same as your SPJ lathe. I chose R8 for the spindle rather them M3 and do not regret at all, R8 rules ok.Very good machine for the price, yes! I would have liked the X3 but was too big/heavy/costly for me at the time. The SX2P is very quiet and powerful and has taken everything I could throw at it. I have put cheap I gaging scales on all three axis which transforms the machine, I have also replaced the torque arm with a gas strut which again transforms the machine.

Definitely my recommendation to match you SPG lathe

Edited By Howi on 03/05/2016 09:00:14

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

I have the WM 16 gear drive for 3 years now & am quite satisfied with it's performance, I don't ask it to do more than it's capable of. the only downside is the MT2 taper, I would have gone for the WM18 with an MT3 taper but got some tooling with the £200+ difference in price. I am looking at possibly converting it to belt drive sometime in the future although no one has done this here in the UK ( that I'm aware of.   ) I know Grizzly do a conversion system for their equivalent… G0704, but being on a pensioners income some things will have to wait, overall though a reasonably good machine.

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 03/05/2016 09:57:13

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Ideally I wanted the Hi-Torque Mini Mill with solid column, large table, R8 spindle and Gas spring from Little Machine Shop (USA), however being in the UK, I had to adjust my requirements somewhat based on what was actually available.

I dropped the SX2P as I wanted to convert to CNC and there is very little space under the saddle, of what is effectively the same X and Y axis as the SX1(L/P) mills, can still be done, but more effort required and most other conversions use the thicker X/Y castings of the SX2.

I ultimately opted for a belt drive SX2 from Axminster as they happened to be changing their paint colours and were selling off the 'old' coloured ones at a decent discount.

I have since fitted my own gas spring (on the side rather than inside the column) removes the 'rubbish' factory spring mechanism – massive improvement in Z axis stability.

Converted to R8 spindle, spindle from Arc and bearings from ebay – took about an hour, MT3 spindle will be used for 4th axis, intention is to fit a power drawbar that uses Tormach style tool holders, I already have the Tormach R8 collet.

Converted to solid column and longer X axis with solid column kit from Arc – took about an hour (left over parts can be used for even bigger X and Y options – see Hoss Machine), refitted the gas strut on new column.

Igaging scales and Yuriy's toys DRO app on £42.00 tablet until I have the CNC parts machined and fitted.

CNC conversion is still a work in progress, I now have all of the raw material and am most of the way through the electronics, so maybe this year, but don't hold your breath.

loads of options available with one of these mills and plenty of examples of what can be done to them on the web.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Dave Smith the 16th on 03/05/2016 03:59:16:

I knew when buying the lathe that there will be quite an outlay over the price of the machine to get a few things that i will need. 4 jaw chuck and knurling tools and decent tools.

Will the X1LP and no tilting be an issue? SX2P doesnt mention tilting either?

There's a case in point: when I bought my lathe neither a 4-jaw chuck nor knurling tools were on my list of priorities. Sure I'd need them eventually but for me, better to get them later than skimp on the lathe purchase because of them.

As far as the tilting goes, I agree with Bill. I never use it as a tilt-head – way more trouble than it's worth. It does however let you fine-tune the tramming – albeit not easily since there is no fine adjustment and it's a hit and miss process. Moreover, it's having the tilt adjustment that causes the tramming to go out of alignment in those cases of a shunt-up between cutter and work that none of us have. The lock doesn't hold in that case. Then you have a job in progress – perhaps carefully aligned – which you don't want to move and you're trying to re-tram the machine around it.

The ideal, for me, would be a fixed head, perfectly trammed in manufacture but that's probably asking a bit much from these machines. Next would be a small amount of adjustment for tramming purposes, preferably with a fine (screw) adjustment and a means of positively locking ….. perhaps provision for pinning.

If you're looking at a machine without tilt-swivel, I would, though, ask the question of how to tram the machine before you buy it.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Bandersnatch on 03/05/2016 17:21:17:

There's a case in point: when I bought my lathe neither a 4-jaw chuck nor knurling tools were on my list of priorities. Sure I'd need them eventually but for me, better to get them later than skimp on the lathe purchase because of them.

Agreed, whenever I've bought a machine I worried about the cost of tooling later. You don't need to buy all the tooling at once. It would be a bit like putting off buying your first car until you had enough money to buy the first sixths months petrol…

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

Oh my.. SO a fixed head is a bonus ( IF ) perfectly trammed. And may not have the adjustment to bring it level, where a tilting head will allow that, but more likely to be the cause in the first place.

My head hurts!!!

Vic, nah not to buy the petrol but to buy the insurance, the petrol is the inevitble costs that will be on a need basis. So when i need that 55 degree dovetail tool i will get it, but i like to have a good selection to get most of the jobs done. Good analogy though

I would prefer a machine thats no noiser than my lathe, does that mean a belt driven one? I have read comments on how noisy the geared machines are. But cannot compare that to how noisy my lathe it.

Most of the time i leave the gears and leadscrew running the noise doesnt bother me, although when trying to setup after swapping the bearings i did move the arm off. Not exccessively noisy though.

Thanks.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Dave Smith the 16th on 04/05/2016 00:02:06:

Oh my.. SO a fixed head is a bonus ( IF ) perfectly trammed. And may not have the adjustment to bring it level, where a tilting head will allow that, but more likely to be the cause in the first place.

My head hurts!!!

.

Production Engineers' motto: 'If you can't make it right, make it adjustable'

[and if you can't make it properly ajustable, just use over-size holes]

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 04/05/2016 00:28:30

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Dave Smith,

Answers to a lot of the questions also depends on what you intend to do – make, with the machine you intend to buy. If you can elaborate on this, then the choice can be narrowed down.

For the SIEG range on offer from ARC, you are welcome to call and discuss the options with Ian or myself, or come and visit us to see the machines before making a purchase decision.

Ketan at ARC

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

…' As far as the tilting goes, I agree with Bill. I never use it as a tilt-head – way more trouble than it's worth. It does however let you fine-tune the tramming – albeit not easily since there is no fine adjustment and it's a hit and miss process' …

I have fitted tramming blocks to my WM 16 that allowed me to tram in my machine head; pics in my album, once trammed in I locked up the adjusters, it has not moved since… so far… . For the odd angle needed I used a tilting vice & a digi angle gauge

George.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by mechman48 on 04/05/2016 10:49:07:

I have fitted tramming blocks to my WM 16 that allowed me to tram in my machine head; pics in my album,

 

 

One each side I take it?

I'd thought of doing something like that but a combination of never got a round tuit plus difficult access on one side of my machine, means I haven't got there yet

Edited By Bandersnatch on 04/05/2016 16:57:50

[Dave Smith the 16thParticipant @davesmiththe16th]

Ketan, do you have them on display? Your not a million miles away. Typically i will be even closer but going away and will have my Caravan on tow, and its going to be a Sunday

Its a toy so nothing specific as of yet, but i do want to build a decent QCTP for my lathe and seen a couple of threads in here that inspired me, so much easier to use than mine. Levers always in the way of the toolholders and the arms bending slightly.

Also some stirling engines and air powered engines. Fairly small initially though. I also want to build a CNC frame eventually. Where you can put a router tool and a laser tool etc.

Although this is going to be bigger than the machine can handle. What are the small machines like at cutting a dovetail in a piece thats much longer than its bed/travel? How accurate?

Thanks.

[Iain DownsParticipant @iaindowns78295]

My mill is the CMD10 which is (I think) like an X1L but without the L part.

I regret not buying something bigger and more powerful. The mill itself is probably quite good – particularly now I've stripped it down a few times, started to tune it (adding bearings to the leads screws and so no) and come to understand it better. Using good quality tools makes a big difference (my new carbide end mill from Arc Euro Trade is a revelation – near mirror finish on steel).

However, if you are not careful or work with uncertain materials the gears break with some regularity which is a pain. Cheap to replace, but a pain.

Iain

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