Buying a new mill

[GaryK]

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

 

[GaryK]

Now that I have decided on my new mill I wanted to make a few upgrades.

Having moved to my current mill from a full sized Bridgeport I assumed that all my tooling needed to get smaller also.

So as you can see in the photo above I got a 4" vise with e swivel base. A sensible choice for a small mill. Well,
I think I could gone for something a little bigger. It turned out that my mill had as much distance between the spindle and
table as the Bridgeport, about 18". So I could have gone with a bigger vise.

Now that I know a little better I will be upgrading the vise.I was deciding between either a 6" without the swivel base
or a 5" with the swivel. A swivel is not something I use that often but when you need it it helps to have it. Since the
swivel base on the 5" vise I was looking at is only 1.25 tall I would get that.

Here is the vise I selected a 5" with a swivel base. Information about it is HERE.



Now I looked at a lot of vises and even ordered one and returned it. I was basically looking for one that had an acme screw.
My thinking is that a standard 60° thread will not withstand years of use without wearing out. I figured an acme thread will
outlast me so that is what I looked for. All the inexpensive Chinese vises from Grizzly, Enco, Shars... all have standard threads.
I asked Matt and he said the the Taiwanese Homge vises that he sells does have an acme thread so that was good enough
for me.

Also in line with downsizing I got a 3/8 Albrecht drill chuck. To get to the point I should have stuck with a 1/2" chuck.
So I got a new 1/2" Albrecht chuck on ebay for a steal at $150. With the expense of the Albrecht chuck I was thinking of
getting a Rohm instead and save some money but I made a offer to the guy on ebay and after 3 attempts he accepted.

Here are the 3/8" and 1/2" side by side.



I mentioned in my previous post that I will be getting a cast iron base for my PM45. Here is what it looks like under their CNC mill.



I really like that it has 4 holes in bottom of the base rather than the 2 in the steel version. It would give me the option of
putting it on leveling feet if I wanted to.

Gary

 

[stevecmo]

Hi Gary,

It looks like you are getting a really nice mill with all goodies. Very nice!

I have been casually looking for a new 5" vise for my Rockwell mill so yours caught my eye. I went to the Quality Machine Tools link in your first post but I don't find that vise - only a 4", 6" and 8". Is this something you and Matt just worked out, or am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks in advance.

Steve

 

[GaryK]

Hi Gary,

It looks like you are getting a really nice mill with all goodies. Very nice!

I have been casually looking for a new 5" vise for my Rockwell mill so yours caught my eye. I went to the Quality Machine Tools link in your first post but I don't find that vise - only a 4", 6" and 8". Is this something you and Matt just worked out, or am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks in advance.

Steve

Sorry Steve, I overlooked the link. I don't think that Matt has his site updated yet. He sent me the direct link. It's HERE.

It seems like all the Chinese vises use standard threads while Taiwanese vises still use the better acme thread.

Good luck in your quest.

Gary

 

[darkzero]

Matt's primary site (machinetoolonline.com) does have the Homge vises listed. They're on the accessories page under super high precision vises. Matt's secondary page (precisionmatthews.com) that is online (there's a couple of others) does not have the Homge vises listed. FYI the machinetoolonline.com site is always the most up to date.

 

[GaryK]

Matt's primary site (machinetoolonline.com) does have the Homge vises listed. They're on the accessories page under super high precision vises. Matt's secondary page (precisionmatthews.com) that is online (there's a couple of others) does not have the Homge vises listed. FYI the machinetoolonline.com site is always the most up to date.

You know I've look at the site a couple of times and I always stopped looking at the "Milling Machine Vises" and never continued looking after that. It's interesting the tricks that can get played
with your eyes. You are right, it's right there.

I have only looked at his other site once a long time ago. I always use the primary site.

It won't be getting updated anytime soon I don't think since Matt will be in Taiwan for 9 days starting Monday.

Gary

 

[stevecmo]

Thanks for the info guys!

 

[darkzero]

It won't be getting updated anytime soon I don't think since Matt will be in Taiwan for 9 days starting Monday.

I doubt it will get updated in a while. The PM site doesn't seem to get updated very much at all. Yup I got my order in today with Matt today & he was quick to ship today before his trip. Matt is awesome, once again he has taken care of me, in fact today's invoice came out to $0 (sssh). )

 

[GaryK]

There is one other thing that's different about the new mill vs the old one I forgot to mention.

The new one has a gear driven head vs the belt drive. This will make it more likely that I will
change speeds. I didn't tended to do that too often!

I'll give the belts their credit though. I only had to replace one in over 20 years.

I do know one change that I will really enjoy, and that the x-axis power feed. I got real tired
cranking on that handle all the time!

Gary

 

[GaryK]

Well, the new mill just arrived in the dark at 7:15pm.

I've been sick all day so I will have to wait until tomorrow to unpack it if I'm feeling better.

I'll post pics also.

Gary