hobby drilling/milling machine?

[mister_tom]

it seems that decent info for buying a hobby milling machine is alot harder to come across than good welding advice.

im looking for a drilling/milling machine with a budget of £500 and would preferably like to buy new. ive seen a couple of machines for sale on ebay but have no idea on the quality of them. im basically looking for a machine that can drill and mill mild steel sheet/tube with a max thickness of around 4-5mm.

heres a couple ive seen on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CLARKE-CMD300...66:2|39:1|72:1696|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMA16V-Millin...s=65:15|66:2|39:1|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:50

 

[Archie]

The Clarke welding gear has a pretty good reputation here but personally I wouldn't touch anything else they make with a ten foot barge pole! I borrowed a mechanical hacksaw of theirs off a friend and it's crap. I'd have been well and truly ****** off had I paid the £800 of so they want for one. Anyway, looking at the two of those I'd say the second doesn't look too bad at all. It's on a No. 2 Morse taper which is pretty standard and they say they'll do ER25 collets. Though if you have space I'd still recommend something second hand....!

 

[mister_tom]

The Clarke welding gear has a pretty good reputation here but personally I wouldn't touch anything else they make with a ten foot barge pole! I borrowed a mechanical hacksaw of theirs off a friend and it's crap. I'd have been well and truly ****** off had I paid the £800 of so they want for one. Anyway, looking at the two of those I'd say the second doesn't look too bad at all. It's on a No. 2 Morse taper which is pretty standard and they say they'll do ER25 collets. Though if you have space I'd still recommend something second hand....!

hi, thanks for the info. ive got a couple of used machines on my watch list currently but im just worried about parts availability and potentially having no instructions for a machine.

 

[David_W]

The Clarke one is a rebadged Sieg, worth maving a look at:
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Main/mini-mill.htm
Its quite a nice machine if you work within its capabilities. Haven't used the other one, had a look at it, looks quite nice and and can highly recommend the seller, bought my lathe from him, although he doesn't know too much about the machines.
HTH.....

 

[mister_tom]

what do you think of this:

http://www.warco.co.uk/Mini-Mill-Drill-EBFC17B0BF.aspx

more info - http://www.warco.co.uk/productimages/documents/P49.pdf

looks like a tidy bit of kit from a british firm aswell

 

[Sid]

looks like a tidy bit of kit from a british firm aswell

The lathe/milling machine I had from them was made in China. Clarke sell a virtually identical one.

The documentation that came with the machine was so badly translated it's hilarious.

Warco are good to deal with though.

 

[Pete.]

Warco sell Chinese made machines. THe earlier ones were Taiwanese I believe and much better. Only good thing I could say about them is they have a healthy-sized spindle bore - the one I looked at was 32mm.

 

[bigbadbugga]

I just had a look around the warco site and they look very good for the price.

Especially the larger lathes, would need to see one in the flesh before I parted with any cash though.

I have saved the site in my favorites and will seriously consider them when I come to purchasing my lathe.

Thanx for the link

 

[MBConfuse]

I can thoroughly reccomment the Seig X3 Mill, i bought one from Axminster recently. Perhaps slightly higher priced than you were thinking. Also remember to include for the price of tooling.

 

[hareng]

Just bide your time the small jobbies are only for should we say delicate work and take an eternity to do some thing.
Should be able to pick something like this up for around £200 ish s/h http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/cmd1225c-mill-drill/path/metal-lathes-milldrills Bought one 10 years ago and it did some work, still got it but not used often prefer the bigger jobby.
Same as Warco, Axminster, Chetser, etc http://www.chesteruk.net/store/eagle_25.htm

Must say and also same with the lathes anything diy variable speed has no torque, you may waste your money because you wont use it.

 

[Pete.]

Better off with something older IMO:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180369953064

 

[TheJoker]

Hi, I've got an Axway SIEG Super X1 Micro-Mill MkII and I love it. Got it for £200-ish from eBay unused.
I have only used it on Alu, but it seems to do it just fine. What I miss from it is stops for the table, but I can live without that.
Have a look at Axminster's Milling Machines page.

Also consider that you'll need to spend quite a bit of money on clamps, etc. Good luck!

 

[hareng]

As said before bide your time.
I bought one of these Clarke jobbies s/h to tie me over for a couple of years, had about 20 mins use for £200, lowest prices seen have been around £650 from Axminster last year. Look at this ebay, same machine with worthless extras, some R8 tooling no use on an MT3 taper!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=250429213522
So what i am saying is know the prices and dont get carried away, link above brand new could have saved about £500.

Another misconception is people think of the bed size in relation to what they intend to do.
A 10" bed may only have travel in X axis of 4" or severe run out as the weight hangs off the slides with associated play/wear. Limited by small dia cutters and height as well as the castings flexing.
Will do the job eventually but as a guide Bridgeport 20 secs to do a task no wear or breakages against 6 to 8 hrs with above post plus cutter wear and breakages, thats the difference.

Aluminium is easy thats a 10" rotary table with above RF25 taken around 7 years ago. Incidently can now do three times more work in 1 /2 the time on bigger miller, no piccies.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL15/728921/1252422/14584660.jpg