Re: Mill/Drill

I'm not sure I would agree "all" Asian machines are of poor quality. Jet
and Acra seem to be quite good. You have to strike a balance, a worn out
Bridgeport vs. a new Taiwanese machine. Both are going to require some work
to make them CNC suitable. Both may cost about the same.

Some folks say avoid Harbor Freight, as they reportedly have poor quality
Asian machines.

I guess you could qualify it this way (this is a generalization, and may not
always hold) , Taiwanese machines are better than Chinese, Chinese are
better than Indian.

I bought a reconditioned Bridgeport about 5 years ago, It still had a lot of
backlash so I opted to spend about $1,000 for ballscrews. I still had about
.003 backlash, until I loaded the bearings. Now I have a very tight machine.

Some of the detail work on the Asian machines needs help, an article in Home
Shop Machinist addressed some of that. (New hand wheels, replacing the gib
locks, etc).

It seems we all like Bridgeports and Bridgeport clones, but if I had it to
do over again, I probably would have saved my money and looked for a used
Cincinnati, for a manual mill, I expect CNC conversion of a Cincinnati would
be a major undertaking.

Linc

Leighton M. (Linc) Reed-Nickerson
Broadcast Technology US
Phone: 360-834-1862
Fax: 360-834-6061
Web www.broadcasttechnology.com


-----Original Message-----
From: TADGUNINC@... [mailto:TADGUNINC@...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 06:48 AM
To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Mill/Drill

From: TADGUNINC@...

>From: "Kevin Brennan" <k.brennan@...>
>
>I've been lurking and reading and I'm interested in this whole scene, I'm
>looking at mill/drills and Harbor Freight has a 8x28" with 19". of long
>travel for $899 through tomorrow.

From: "Dan Mauch" <dmauch@...>

All of the imported Asian machines suffer from poor quality.


Come on now Dan be nice :o).
You did not mention one other thing you really ought to upgrade if you
want to get precision results out of the import machines. The spindle
bearings should be replaced with high quality ones and preloaded properly.
I have a "quality import" 8X30 knee mill which I have upgraded. It's the
machine I'm going to convert to CNC, as of right now with the DRO I can hold
tolerance on my parts to .0005".
Good advise on upgrading the cheaper mills Dan, have fun Kevin!
Tracey

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