daxliniere
Member
- Messages
- 143
- Location
- North London, UK
Hey gang,
I was given a large, old, floor-standing pantograph engraver that I'm converting into a mill for my little workshop. Leadscrews have been changed to ballscrews and it's currently using a Meddings M4 drill press as the head.
I want to replace the head with a proper milling head, but haven't really seen anything at the right price. Lately I've been considering just rigid-mounting a milling quill+spindle and using a 3-4HP DC treadmill motor on it (since the knee can be used for Z-travel).
A couple days ago I came across a listing on FB for a Bridgeport head that seems to have been lashed to a piece of RHS. I had a phone call with the fella and he seems nice enough, but I think it asking too much for how the condition looks in the photos. He is comparing it to a £1200 eBay listing, but that one looks in much better condition and has the cherrying head attachment (which seems to be the sought-after part of the listing).
I wanted to get people's thoughts on whether it's work pursuing and how much it might be worth, then I could make an offer to the guy. He seems happy enough to split the cross-slide table, huge pile of end-mills and two Clarkson auto-lock collet chucks in order to drop the price.
It's a fair drive from London just to take a peek at it and the seller has admitted that he's not terribly experienced so is probably not in a good position to comment on the condition.
Here are the photos I have. As you can see, the spindle and many of the levers are very rusty for a precision machine tool.
I was given a large, old, floor-standing pantograph engraver that I'm converting into a mill for my little workshop. Leadscrews have been changed to ballscrews and it's currently using a Meddings M4 drill press as the head.
I want to replace the head with a proper milling head, but haven't really seen anything at the right price. Lately I've been considering just rigid-mounting a milling quill+spindle and using a 3-4HP DC treadmill motor on it (since the knee can be used for Z-travel).
A couple days ago I came across a listing on FB for a Bridgeport head that seems to have been lashed to a piece of RHS. I had a phone call with the fella and he seems nice enough, but I think it asking too much for how the condition looks in the photos. He is comparing it to a £1200 eBay listing, but that one looks in much better condition and has the cherrying head attachment (which seems to be the sought-after part of the listing).
I wanted to get people's thoughts on whether it's work pursuing and how much it might be worth, then I could make an offer to the guy. He seems happy enough to split the cross-slide table, huge pile of end-mills and two Clarkson auto-lock collet chucks in order to drop the price.
It's a fair drive from London just to take a peek at it and the seller has admitted that he's not terribly experienced so is probably not in a good position to comment on the condition.
Here are the photos I have. As you can see, the spindle and many of the levers are very rusty for a precision machine tool.