Lincoln Mill Drill Worth Getting ?

[stupoty]

I have never use one of these machines, but I think I get it.....when changing tooling you sometimes need to move the head due to the length of the tooling before it goes back up into the spindle....like a drill press. On my drill press I expect to be able to change tools (say go to a larger diameter bit) with the work clamped to the table and just simply drill, change and drill again all on the same centre. However, sometimes the tooling is too long......then I need to un-clamp the table, and therefore lose rotational reference. Major bummer!

The difference is unclamping the head with the mill and the table with my drill press.

Something you try to plan for and workaround, unless you can't then you re-centre and move along....what a PITA!
Thanks guys!
Thanks for the education.

-brino

I suspect this info to be useful to the OP in evaluating this machine....hopefully this is not seen as a thread hijack.

Brino has described the biggest issue with a round coloum mill , hence why I don't use a drill chuck on it and all tooling goes into a collet chuck, this instantly helps with not having to adjust the height so often.

I tend to make a quick list of the order of operations for anything that is beyond a very simple part. This helps with reducing the "ow i've got to change the height and re center on the part" issues

The one charles linked to on craigs list has a broken down feed knob, to me thats indicitive of it having fallen over on it's face.

On the issue of tramming , i did try and play that game once, found it to be quite a futile excercise as in my case any very fine adjustment was lost as soon as you move up or down the coloum and re clamp.

I would say they have a tolerance level and generly it's best to work around and with it than try to make it go away entirely.

Basicaly they are not a bridgeport, they wont hold the tolerance of a knee mill, they are however a lot cheeper and lighter. This should all be taken into account when looking at them and inform your choices.

If you get. Chance for a bridgeport for 300 dollars defo go for that though althouh all the regular caviats of does it have a crack in the casting or is their large chunks milling from the slide ways etc. etc.

Stuart

 

[yendor]

The tooling shown in her pic's is worth $500.00 by itself.

So I'd say go for it.

You can always clean it up and sell it without the tooling and put the funds towards a better one if you decide it not what you want.

But you'll get some experience along the way.

 

[barkoguru]

Well just an update on the Lincoln mill deal, I finally got together with the son to take a look at the mill and see what was laying around that went with it, the mill itself as someone stated before is I believe a Lincoln badged RF 30, it even has rf30 in the model number, it was purchased new by the father in 2005 at a local industrial supply house, it's got surface rust and its dirty, it looks worse in the pic than it really is, he worked mostly with aluminum and hard plastic building one off target pistols, the example I saw was very impressive, the machine is wired 110 and it ran very smooth and quiet, the power feed worked fine as well, I saw about .008 backlash on both handwheels, the ways looked good and showed no signs of rust, included would be a set of r8 collets, a set of er32 collets, an r8 to er32 holder, an mt3 to er32 holder which would work on my lathe I think, a China brand 5c collet spin indexer, several boxes of drill bits, taps, dies, some new some junk I'm sure, lots of end mills cutters, dovetail cutters, but surface rust is showing so maybe good maybe not, the er collets are showing surface rust also, this has all been setting idle a couple of years, another year and most of it will be scrap I believe, there were some assorted measuring tools but most were China and very old starrett indicators I wouldn't trust, I did see a nice mitutoyo dial caliper and a decent looking newer 6 piece 0-6" outside mic set in a nice wooden box, now all that being said the guy said he thinks it's all worth about a grand, I said I'll have to do some thinking and get back with him, what say you ? I'm open to suggestions, opinions. Based on seeing it run and what's there that may or may not be usable and taking into account the local availability of used machines or lack there of, I'm thinking around 650 tops.

 

[TomS]

Well just an update on the Lincoln mill deal, I finally got together with the son to take a look at the mill and see what was laying around that went with it, the mill itself as someone stated before is I believe a Lincoln badged RF 30, it even has rf30 in the model number, it was purchased new by the father in 2005 at a local industrial supply house, it's got surface rust and its dirty, it looks worse in the pic than it really is, he worked mostly with aluminum and hard plastic building one off target pistols, the example I saw was very impressive, the machine is wired 110 and it ran very smooth and quiet, the power feed worked fine as well, I saw about .008 backlash on both handwheels, the ways looked good and showed no signs of rust, included would be a set of r8 collets, a set of er32 collets, an r8 to er32 holder, an mt3 to er32 holder which would work on my lathe I think, a China brand 5c collet spin indexer, several boxes of drill bits, taps, dies, some new some junk I'm sure, lots of end mills cutters, dovetail cutters, but surface rust is showing so maybe good maybe not, the er collets are showing surface rust also, this has all been setting idle a couple of years, another year and most of it will be scrap I believe, there were some assorted measuring tools but most were China and very old starrett indicators I wouldn't trust, I did see a nice mitutoyo dial caliper and a decent looking newer 6 piece 0-6" outside mic set in a nice wooden box, now all that being said the guy said he thinks it's all worth about a grand, I said I'll have to do some thinking and get back with him, what say you ? I'm open to suggestions, opinions. Based on seeing it run and what's there that may or may not be usable and taking into account the local availability of used machines or lack there of, I'm thinking around 650 tops.

It would be a steal at $650. My best guess is the mill by itself is worth about $500, maybe a bit more. The tooling has value so add another $250. If I was in the market for a mill drill with the tooling described above I would be willing to pay $750 for the package. Keep in mind I'm on the West coast. Texas prices may be different.

Good luck. I hope it works out for you.

Tom S.