| The Breakroom > The Water Cooler |
| to bid or not to bid?? |
| << < (2/4) > >> |
| vtsteam:
I ahve an atlas horizontal mill (smaller than yours) and an Asian round column mill drill with an r8 spindle. I bought the horizontal first and used it for 6 months. The mill drill was an Ebay bargain @ $450, like new, located 2 hours drive away. I have never used the horizontal since. Not saying you can't be happy with a horizontal mill, particularly with a bigger more solid one, but......... well first of all, though I have many good Hz cutters and spacers, and the overarm works well, bearings good, Imainly used the thing with collets, end mills and an angle plate to hold work on, no overarm. That works okay for small stuf, but last summer I resurfaced the head of my Ford tractor on the vert mill drill. If the horizontal was big enough, I could have done the same with H mills on the horizontal, assuming I had enough Z travel to the table to fit a big cutter on the arbor plus the height of the head, but, if not hard to imagine doing it on an angle plate. H cutters are expensive compared to end mills, and carbide if you need it is going to be rare or pricey by comparison. Questions to ask is what is the taper in the spindle, Z travel, does it have a good selection of spacers, what kinds of speeds are available...... Up to you on everything of course! But if I had to give up one mill it would be the H, not the mill/drill.. ps. if space wasn't aan option, and I planned future purchases, AND I was attracted to older machinery, I'd chose a vert mill and a shaper over a vert mill and a H mill. The shaper is truly a different piece of equipment and can do different things well, while a H mill is kind of the same as a V mill with some limitations. I would also say, the larger the H mill the better, and more useful (though more costly to equip). I think size matters particularly there, more than even the others. Oh yes one more thing -- if you anticipated doing a lot of slotting, particularly multiple slots in a production piece, that might favor the H mill. |
| hermetic:
I assume you have looked at www.lathes.co.uk/pallas, if not..........do! It is a good machine, the only drawback I cab see is that apparently it has a BESA taper, which means that getting tooling will be tough, unles you can turn the taper yourself. On the plus side, you can hog off more metal with a horizontal than a vertical, and I have and use a harrison horizontal, but bought in the days before they went ballistic pricewise on ebay, and I freely admit that I have just bought (after much searching) a vertical head for it. Have a look at the above link, se what you can find out about BESA tapers, and make a decision based on the facts, you will be lucky to get a harrison H mill for under a grand, and vertical heads are like hens teeth. Remember, there are other auction sites on the net as well as ebay (ebid/gumtree/preloved etc) and you are saving a bit of British engineering history!! Phil |
| hermetic:
Just seen the tooling, there is enough of it, and the taper looks like BT40 to me, though there is no way of judging scale! you are getting your moneys worth in tooling, I would go for it, because you can give it a good clean up and sort its problems, and then resell if it really turns out to be not for you. the thing is with all machine tools, you have to think of a way to machine the part that you want using the machines you have got, and there is usually a way! phil |
| vtsteam:
Seems the Ebay ad contradicts the lathe site specs. Ad says 12" vertical travel, the site says 7" vertical travel. Which is it? That makes a big difference, if I was considering a bid. Also get the taper spec sorted. |
| bertie_bassett:
First thing I did was to look on the lathes site to find out info etc hadn't noticed any differences in travels, but will double check once im home. A quick bit of research on The taper the other day didn't come up with much, but from the looks of it the was a couple in with the tooling so think id be ok to start with. If I were to build a very head for it id go with an ER collets so wouldn't have much of an issue, plus fairly sure id be able to turn up parts if required. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |