- Joined
- Dec 13, 2012
- Messages
- 466
This will be a companion piece to my "Buying a new lathe" post.
Like my other post I have yet to take delivery of my new machine. It is currently in route and I should have it around March 5th.
I'll start with what I have been using for the last 20+ years.
It's a Taiwanese round column clone. Nothing different about it compared to all the others except this was made before all the Chinese imports.
The round column is the reason I'm getting rid of it and the reason I never really liked it.
With the round column you lose zero every time you move the head up and down. You couldn't tram the head in either since it was fixed. You would
have to shim the entire column to adjust it. Mine happened to be close enough that I didn't worry about it. I had to re-zero it every time I moved
the head anyway.
Here's a picture of the new one I'll be getting. It's a PM45-M from QUALITY MACHINE TOOLS. Matt the owner is a great guy to deal with.
This one is different than others you see one this site because it has a new feature for the first time starting with this batch of mills.
It has an integrated DRO built into the quill.
Here is a close up showing it:
Albeit it is a "poor mans" battery powered DRO but it will do the job it's intended to do.
The mill I ordered will have a power feed in the X-axis and a 3 axis DRO which is a standard option. There is one other new item I will
have on my mill that I have yet to see on any other PM45 mils, and that's a cast iron base. To the best of my knowledge it's only been
available in their CNC machines. I really liked the idea of a cast iron base so I asked for one.
Now with the square dovetailed column I won't have to worry about the head moving all over the place when I move it up or down.
Until next time.
Gary
Like my other post I have yet to take delivery of my new machine. It is currently in route and I should have it around March 5th.
I'll start with what I have been using for the last 20+ years.
It's a Taiwanese round column clone. Nothing different about it compared to all the others except this was made before all the Chinese imports.
The round column is the reason I'm getting rid of it and the reason I never really liked it.
With the round column you lose zero every time you move the head up and down. You couldn't tram the head in either since it was fixed. You would
have to shim the entire column to adjust it. Mine happened to be close enough that I didn't worry about it. I had to re-zero it every time I moved
the head anyway.
Here's a picture of the new one I'll be getting. It's a PM45-M from QUALITY MACHINE TOOLS. Matt the owner is a great guy to deal with.
This one is different than others you see one this site because it has a new feature for the first time starting with this batch of mills.
It has an integrated DRO built into the quill.
Here is a close up showing it:
Albeit it is a "poor mans" battery powered DRO but it will do the job it's intended to do.
The mill I ordered will have a power feed in the X-axis and a 3 axis DRO which is a standard option. There is one other new item I will
have on my mill that I have yet to see on any other PM45 mils, and that's a cast iron base. To the best of my knowledge it's only been
available in their CNC machines. I really liked the idea of a cast iron base so I asked for one.
Now with the square dovetailed column I won't have to worry about the head moving all over the place when I move it up or down.
Until next time.
Gary