King Kc-20vs Milling Machine

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HBilly1022

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The closest tool store is an hours drive from my place and only offer King Canada milling machines. There are no other tool stores in that city that sell milling machines. They have the the PDM-30 and KC-20VS in stock and I'm considering getting one of them. I've read some negative reviews for the PDM-30 so will focus on the KC-20VS. http://www.kingcanada.com/Products.htm?CD=36

Does anyone here have any experience with this machine and if so what are your thoughts.
 
I have not used that make. But it looks like my G0704 witch I have had for about 6 years and been very happy with.
 
Hi HBilly

I bought one of those machines last april. I like it very much. I do a lot of small work, my biggest pieces being about 5" diameter. I work in mostly in aluminum and brass, and a bit of stainless once in a while. I did a lot of research last winter and found that this machine has quite a long table which would give me room to put a vice and a rotary table on it. I quickly added DRO's for the x and y as the indexed crank wheels are unimpressive. The little Z readout on the quill is handy though. I also bought the R8 x 3/4 collet from Tormach along with a collet set from them. It all works well for me. There is a mountain of info for this machine on the net for converting it to CNC as kd4gij is correct when he says that its the same machine as a G0704. I may do this some day.

Some negatives:

1) don't plan on getting a whole lot of aftermarket support from King, their customer support guy from Montreal is pretty much useless.
2) I find that when I mount any milling cutter over about a 1/2" the quill will not hold it tight enough, it loosens while cutting, works downward and screws up the work. Its happened several times to me. Its related to the tightening nut on the drawbar, I can't get it tight enough to hold and if I tighten too much the whole thing spins loose.....so a bit of a design problem there.....and I asked King about it and their response was, basically..."good luck"

If ANYONE out there knows a cure for this please let me know! But as I said before I mostly do small stuff and it works fine on any cutters under 1/2".

Wayne
 
Wayne -
OK, I'm just speculating ... but the specs on the KC-20 state that the spindle is R8. If your larger collets are losing tools, I'd say it was time to buy some better collets.
PS - When tightening the draw bar, is there a way to lock the spindle rotation, so you can tighten things up snugly? If not, you might want to look for or rig up a way to lock the spindle. No need to make it "farmer tight," but pretty snug is good.
 
Thanks for the replies and comments. Looks like this would be fine for me.

I checked the Grizzly G0704 and there are some differences that I noted. One is the Grizzly has 12 amp motor vs the KC only being 4.8 amps and the Grizzly has a 15" swing vs the KC only being 13". So not sure if they are the same machines. In any case, it appears the KC will work for me. I'll still do some more research but will likely get one of these unless a good deal comes up on a used bigger machine.
 
How about aR8 to weldon shank tool holder with a set screw. How about a R8 to ew30 or 40 collet set.
 
Comparing the two machines:
KC-20VS = 308 lbs with a square column
PDM-30 =772 lbs with a round column

So the pdm-30 is significantly bigger and will be able to take heavier cuts, but if you have to change the height of the head in the middle of a job you will have to do something to find where your zero is. Some people really worry about that re-registration problem. I have an RF-30 (a similar machine) and with a little care I haven't found it to be a big problem.
 
So I just got back from the big city and went to the tool store (KMS Tools) to check out the mills. I may rethink this after seeing the 2 machines side by side. As noted by Dorn the PDM30 is WAY more substantial than the KC-20VS. The 30 has a much larger motor plus it comes with a tilting vice and 3 face cutter, but is only $200 more than the 20. Doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe the VS motor on the 20 costs more and the tilting head may be a great feature. But not having ever used a milling machine I have no idea whether the tilting head and variable speed are more important than the extra power and weight of the 30. The 20 also comes with a DRO and the 30 doesn't. Again not sure how important that is. I suppose I could always add one, as I've noted others have done with their lathes and mills.

Dorn; the 30 has a 5" spindle stroke vs a 2" on the 20 so I doubt that re registering the cut depth would be an issue very often. How long have you had the RF-30, who makes it and are you happy with it?
 
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IMNSHO:
More substantial and larger motor - big plus for the 30
Variable speed motor vs changing belts - probably not a big decider. VS is nice, but I change belt ratios in my drill press and RF-30 clone.
Tilting head - probably not a big decider. I either tilt the workpiece in the vise (checked by an electronic level) or else use a sine plate.
Tilting vise - probably not that valuable, though if the 20 doesn't have a vise at all, that will be a plus for the 30
DRO - that would be a definite plus for the 20. I *HATE* having to count dial turns. Can you get a DRO installed on the 30 as an option?
Longer spindle stroke - definitely helpful
 
Thanks hman / John, you make some very good points. I too don't mind changing spindle speeds on my drill press but on the Lathe it is a little more involved, especially when changing from low range to high range. But from what I see the PDM30 has a similar head to that of a drill press and likely wouldn't be a big deal to change.

I found the thread that gave the PDM 30 bad reviews but most of those were generic negative comments like "that's not a milling machine, it's a glorified drill press - if you want a milling machine get one". Not based on personal experience just supposition. That thread seemed to gather steam as others chimed in about mill drills not being milling machines. There were however 2 posts from people stating they had personal experience with that machine. One stated he had his for 6 years and was happy with it, although it did need to be readjusted on occasion. The other one stated he had one for a day and sold it for $100 on Ebay. I have my doubts about one of these being offered for $100, so will discount that response.

As far as I know there is no option to get a DRO on the 30 so it would have to be an after market setup.

I did find one other comment on another thread where someone stated that the head of his RF30 clone had a tendency to twist because it was mounted on a circular column instead of a dovetail one. I have no experience with mills so don't know if this could be an issue or not. Seems to make sense though.
 
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