Which mini-mill should I get?

Pcmaker

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I'm very new to machining. My Grizzly 7x12 lathe hasn't even arrived yet, even though I've already received all the tooling I ordered from Amazon.

Which mini-mill should I compliment my lathe with? Nothing too big as I have a small garage I use as a shop and I par my car in there, too. I'll be generally making not-so-big items.
 
I can recommend Precision Machinery's PM25, Its accurate, easy to operate, not expensive.
 
Lacking any budgetary constraints or work requirements in your query this is an interesting question.
Less or more then $25.000
 
For toy-weight machining, Grizzly's G-0727 is a good choice. I am partial to a knee based Z axis. Just old fashioned, I guess. I have an older Atlas horizontal machine and am very partial to it. The Griz 0727 has some bad points but mostly in the horizontal mode. In vertical mode, it has a lot going for it. But no serious power. Food for thought.......
 
I had a little machine shop mini mill and Converted it to CNC. I was very pleased with it, but found out fairly quickly that when it comes to mills, bigger is better. If you are positive you'll never need anything bigger... then the grizzly, LMS and PM machines would all fit the bill. Moving to the next size up like a G0704 or PM equivalent are somthing worth thinking about considering the fairly small difference in price vs much more capability. The space/footprint is not a huge difference either and suitable for those with limited space.
 
For toy-weight machining, Grizzly's G-0727 is a good choice. I am partial to a knee based Z axis.

I have its bigger brother the G0730.
I am also partial to knee milling, and the added weight and nose height are an added benefit.
 
As of now, I'm leaning towards the Precision Machinery's PM25. It's around $1600 for the base model.
 
Looks like a pretty nice machine with a very large work envelope compared with your mini lathe.

In the interests of being able to interchange tooling such as collets etc. Do any mini mills come with MT3 spindle tapers rather than R8?

David
 
I'm afraid you'll find that the Morse Taper mounts are not set up to resist lateral movement, but might be subject to loosening when used in a milling procedure.
 
I guess I am used to folks using Sherline mills and lathes for small micro machining and their mill uses an MT taper in the spindle which is compatible with their lathe head stock.. Perhaps it has to do with higher cutting loads that R8 is preferred?

David
 
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