Mill/drill

Owned a round column mill/drill for years and did good work on it. Like said, it has limitations, but those can be overcome with planning. I recently bought a new HF 33686, their big mill/drill for home use. Works fine.
 
Interestingly, I had a 9x40 square column mill that would cut anything my current PM935 does. Including burying a 5/8" end mill in mild steel. My bench mill was Chinese and it took me a year of tuning it to get it to that point though, TBH. The main advantage to the 935 IMO is the knee makes it a bit easier to do some operations. Doesn't mean I can't do them on a bench mill though.

I built custom competition pistols on a Sherline mill and lathe, my PM25 and a SB1001 lathe, a Charter Oak (the 9x40) and now my 935 and a 1340GT lathe. Bigger machines make some things easier is all.

If I was in the market for a good quality bench mill right now the only one I would consider is the PM833. But that's just me.

I would question the ability/skills of those who say good work can't be done on a square column bench mill, because I know for a fact that it can be. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. ;) :D
 
Mitch Alsup said:
Round column mills are simply beefed up drill presses where the spindle bearings can take lateral loadings.
If I were you with your limited space, I would go for a square column mill.
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The rungfu 40 (round col), and the rungfu 45 (square col), use the same heads. I believe all of the rungfu series use the same quill.
 
Just had to comment on this thread. I see it all the time. People commenting on the round column mill with no experience at all with them and shoot them down. I ve worked on Bridgeports, and much bigger mills and have to s
ay the Jet jmd-18 pfn (made in Taiwan) does a pretty good job. No problem taking a cut in 1018 with a depth of 1.5" and radial of .100" all climb milling. With the head low and a good setup it leaves a nice finish. Came with the larger table of 9.25" x 32" with more travel and an extended column for a spindle to table distance of 26 inches along with power down feed(would not own a mill without it) Never been close to running out of room.
Here are some thoughts. At this price range you have to accept the fact your not going to fill all the boxes.
People put the round column down from what they have read. I wanted the twelve speeds from 150-3000 vs. A six change box with a limited rpm of 1500. Long term I much prefer pulleys for longevity amd the smoothness over gears that are not herringbone. Much easier to service down the rd and leaves a nice finish.
So don t know if the negative stuff is valid. Plan your tooling and not an issue. Jeez even move off your part and return if you have to but really once understood it s not really an issue.
If you can think out of the box the round column can help get some work done you may not be able to do with a dovetail column. Remember you can extend the travel by moving the head or clamp something off the table.
I don t know if I would take advice from people that have never had any experience with them, and you will see that most people that have owned tham have been happy.
In this price range I feel I made the right choice. Doing work with it. Very very happy. My first Jet and will be buying another one of there machines down the rd.
Here is a boring bar I made up swinging the head and mounting off the table.
 

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Try plugging RF-45 clone mill into Bing and see what you come up with. For the price they are excellent value and millions have been converted to full CNC.
MarkM made some very valid points and consider if it is for a home workshop these mill/drills give a lot of bang for the buck and there is reams of information available on them plus numerous mods. The work envelope is good and they don't break the bank & despite all the knockers there are millions of happy users. Fettling is to be encouraged but most are damn good as delivered.
 
NortonDommi said:
millions have been converted to full CNC
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I think you may be overestimating a little bit there. RF-45 is on the larger and more expensive end of the small hobby machines. I would bet that the number of people that convert their own machines is relatively low and decreases as size increases. Ie for every RF-45 conversion, there are likely 10 G0704 size conversions and 50 X2 size conversions. You can see evidence of that on cnczone when looking at the relative number of posts for machine specific forums. RF-45: 1151 posts, X3, SX3, ETC: 3902 posts, taig mills and lathes: 8339 posts. So while I am sure there are thousands of successfully converted RF-45s out there, millions is likely a stretch.
 
shooter123456 said:
I think you may be overestimating a little bit there. RF-45 is on the larger and more expensive end of the small hobby machines. I would bet that the number of people that convert their own machines is relatively low and decreases as size increases. Ie for every RF-45 conversion, there are likely 10 G0704 size conversions and 50 X2 size conversions. You can see evidence of that on cnczone when looking at the relative number of posts for machine specific forums. RF-45: 1151 posts, X3, SX3, ETC: 3902 posts, taig mills and lathes: 8339 posts. So while I am sure there are thousands of successfully converted RF-45s out there, millions is likely a stretch.
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Yeah, point taken. I hang my head in shame for over estimation and exaggeration. Should have said thousands. I stand humiliated and publicly corrected.
 
NortonDommi said:
Yeah, point taken. I hang my head in shame for over estimation and exaggeration. Should have said thousands. I stand humiliated and publicly corrected.
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This is a friendly forum, I wasn't attacking you. Just trying to keep things in perspective.
 
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