The machine in the first pic is not the same, i.e., smaller then the machine in pictures 2-4. The larger machine has significantly larger base, column and more Y axis travel. That's the machine that caught my eye.
Ray will give us the real scoop once Matt gets the machines in house. That's what I'm waiting for.
Bill
I see three different machines.
1. That really big one in the background of pics 1&2 that apparently won't be imported.
2. The one in the first picture where the base bolts mount to the top of the base.
3. The one in pictures 2-4 where there are a total of 6 base mounting bolts in pidgeon holes. The column to base joint also looks much more stout than the machine in pic 1. The top of the column is sort of rounded and it appears that the column may be wider than on the machine in pic 1, although photos can fool you sometimes due to lens effects. The column also appears to be deeper in the Y direction if you look at the position of the z axis handwheel.
I am certainly interested in the machine in pictures 2 thru 4 and am looking forward to the details and pricing to be published once PM has a chance to look them over.
I understand the marketing strategy outlined with regards to the big machine that won't be imported, but I personally believe that the basic bed mill design of the big machine in the background is much more suited to a CNC application and most manual applications than a knee mill. Knee mills waste an incredible amount of cast iron to provide the ram, knee, tilt, and other features designed for flexibiltiy that rarely get used. There is also a lot more machining and parts required which raise production expense of the machine. Bed mills lose the knee, lose the tilt, lose the ram. Consequently, the bed mill uses the cast iron available more efficiently to construct the base and column of the machine. You can set up special work holding and/or fixturing to approximate a portion of the tilt and ram operational flexibility provided by the knee mill. I owned a machine shop for 20 years and we never once moved the ram from it's normal orientation. Really, the bed mill is the more appropriate mill for the vast majority of machine functions and the knee mill should be more of a specialty machine.
With a bed mill, the base and the column are essentially one component that is much more rigid than the movable knee of a knee mill. A bed mill is far simpler to build and machine with fewer components than the knee mill.
The last machine I bought for my machine shop was a Lagun knee mill to replace the worn out Johnford knee mill we had. I really didn't want a knee mill, I wanted a smaller manual version of the CNC Milltronics RH bed mill we had but I never found such a machine to exist. The bed mill's rigidity, and suitability for large box ways made it a much more durable and capable machine that would have suited our needs much better than the head tilting flexibility of the knee mill that we never used.