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New Toy...

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Darren:
Some of you no doubt have followed by woes regarding my milling machine. Broken cutters, snapped drill bits etc, etc, not to mention poor machining results.

It was so bad I preferred to mill on the lathe as that gave me good results even if the scope of what could be done was somewhat limited with the tooling I have. No vertical slide and limited travel being the greatest limitations.

So when another small mill was being offered locally I decided to take the plunge. Besides, the price was not one that you could easily pass by even if a new miller wasn't wanted.
We spoke over the phone and a price was agreed. Eagerly I drove over to see it.

Oh what a disappointment. It looked in a terrible state and all rusted up. However, it operated really smoothly and upon closer inspection I began to realise the rust was not rust at all. Well, the top surface wasn't, so I took a chance and bought it.

That was yesterday, today I was hampered with plasterboarding walls and concreting the final part of my new garage footings.
But I really wanted to play with the new toy, well you would wouldn't you.

So, even though I was tired after today's workload, I decided to have a go at cleaning up the miller.
I was right, not only was it covered in rust coloured dried and very hard grease, it appeared to be the original shipping grease... :bugeye:
The last, first, owner had never cleaned it off. No wonder he didn't play with it much and lost interest as it wasn't even sliding properly on the bedways. But between hard, solid dried grease...!!

So after spending several hours with copious amounts of white spirit and enough kitchen towel to last several months I found this underneath all the grime. Oh the grime, the machine I bought was almost black all over.





Not bad eh?

A quick go at some machining and for the very first time I'm chuffed with the results.



This picture doesn't do it justice, the machine marks feel very smooth indeed.

I need to strip the castings and clean the bedways properly and it all seems a little slack now so the gibs need adjusting properly as well. Was all gummed up with grease before I guess. Also I managed to loose one of the pillar bolts during the move, so it's a little suspect on redigity in the pillar. A metric mill held together with imperial bolts it seems. Might be a job to find one locally not being metric, where does one find a 1/2" x 2" machine bolt these days?
As you can see, it's in very good condition all over.

John Stevenson:
Ahha the old round column mill drill that everyone tells you is crap and you really need a dovetail column mill.

however I bought one of these when they first came out, well before the dovetail machines, and this puppy earned me some serious coin making laser mirror mounting blocks.

Used correctly they are a nice machine.

You are looking for a 1/2" Whitworth bolt BTW.

JS.

Darren:
Yes, the swiveling head took me by surprise when I loosened the height adjustment bolt. My other similar round column miller doesn't budge in this regard.
Anyway, it does not seem to affect the rigidity when clamped up. just don't adjust the height when work has started, or you will loose your reference points.

Why would you want a head to swivel?

BTW, 1/2" Whit not even on Ebay  :(

Mjay:
I have a mill/ drill similiar to yours. They work good for home/hobby use. The head swivels for more swing??, never used that feature, and try to keep it locked in one location

Mine is 220v 2hp. R8 shank.

This one is made with all metric bolts

Link to the one I bought

http://www.houseoftools.com/product.htm?pid=12737   
 
Here is alink to a good owners manual

http://www.grizzly.com/images/manuals/g3358_m.pdf

sbwhart:
Darren

Nice buy that looks a good bit of kit, :thumbup:

I'll have a look to see if I've got an 1/2 whit die I've got all sorts of odd dies that I've inherited from people.

Cheers

Stew

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