Is This Mill Right ?????

I'm not in favor of having to let the saddle hang off 3 or 4".

Another thing I do not like about this mill is the SMALL "footprint" the column has where it's bolted down. I suppose if it was do or die, you could take the column loose and make a heavy steel plate from at least 1" thick steel,and make it an adapter plate to put under the column to set it back enough to make the mill useful.

The only way you can TRAM the head in the fore and aft direction is by shimming under the column,by the way. Then,that tram would likely change as you elevated or lowered the head,possibly making the column bend a bit.

George is correct (yet again) about the column bending as the head is raised/lowered and the tension on the column changes in degree and location. My bigger mill suffers from a bit of that although it is very small and I don't typically work a large vertical envelope anyway. The PM25 has more (deflection). There are always shortcomings to any design, even a knee mill or a 5 ton production mill. Maybe that is one reason why there are so many machine designs? Dunno. But I agree with George on this one: It is poorly thought out design-wise.

One idea I am considering is an adjustable bracing on the back of the column to keep the column in some degree of tension to reduce what little deflection I get, and to maybe add a little extra rigidity. It may or may not help, but it can't hurt to try.

jeff_g1137 said:

Hi
The saddle would be ok to overhang by 3-4" the x axis would still be on top of the dovetail.
But unless he donated it for free, i am not going to take the chance, it may not work. ???

Click to expand...

It might work for a few years but after a lot of use it will develop horrible wear patterns. It'll wear tapered not in the common two axis hourglass.

george, a couple inches of the saddle hanging off is not a problem, all mill tables hang off about 29inches, depending on travel and table size, mine has about 29inches of travel, i have a clone.