Yet Another "Which Mill" question

I use a LMS High Torque mini for 90% if my milling. It’s s great little machine. I used it for over a year while saving up for a DRO kit. I added that a few months ago and it’s made it even better.
Before that, I bought a Wong Fu (Buffalo Machine) used from a retiring gunsmith for $1000.00. I know that sounds a bit high, but it came with two nice “Kurt style” vises, a 12” rotary table, angle plates, parallels and around $2000.00 worth of tooling. Good deals are out there, just have to get lucky ;)



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Found this reasonably locally on C-list. Price seems fair with vise and some tooling, and there's no shipping. Have an email in on it, will go look at it if it's still available. Likely grab it if it's in good shape.
 
Note, that looks like drill press vise which is not suitable for doing precision milling. Perhaps why his project didn't work out...
 
True, but it's a starting place and better than what I have currently. I expect I'll be beating up the VISA on tooling anyway.:D
 
I have bought a couple of machines off eBay. However, they were close by and offered money back guarantee so I felt it was a safe bet, had good experiences with both buys.

I did that when I sold a lathe on ebay. Got the payment but kept it in ebay so I could reverse it easily if the buyer wasn't happy. He was, it went fine.

PHPaul, I did a screenshot because they'll remove the Craigslist listing and then nobody will know what it was:
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Good idea, Charles. I have an appointment to go look at it tomorrow. I'll post back with the results.

Offhand, does anybody know the overall height of the machine? Best guess I can come up with from the literature is just under 70" which will work in my proposed location. Much taller and I'll have to re-think things.
 
Went and looked at the mill today and grabbed it. Story is the guy's Dad bought it to mill AR lowers, did one and quit.

I can make some educated guesses on why: I don't think he had the first clue what he was doing. Machine appears to have been uncrated, set up and put to work. Cosmoline still on the ways, dovetails and wheels, vise held down with random 5/8ths hex head hardware, two bolts on one side of the pedestal, none on the other, and if you look at the picture of the mill, it is completely plugged up with aluminum.

The machine itself is in good shape but dirty. I doubt it has a half-dozen hours on it. Came with a full set of R8 collets, a full set of (what appear to be inexpensive) TiN mills, a decent looking mag-base dial indicator, a mag-base work light, a handful of loose drills and mills and two inexpensive vises.

Considering the bare machine is $1400-ish new, plus shipping and I paid $1200 for everything, I feel like it was a fair deal. Not smoking, but decent.

I'll need to get a clamp set as the slots are smaller than the set I have for my other table. Could also use a recommendation for a lube system (I'm thinking koolmist but am open to suggestions) and the best lube/oil to protect the dovetails and table surfaces.

I'm stoked. Now to download the manual, finish cleaning it up and figure out how to use it...

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Looks like a pretty good deal indeed, Congratulations!
You have a mill now, you can make some smaller T-nuts :)
I like my Kool-mist, never even use the flood system. There are copies available on eBay supposedly work just as well for a lot le$$.
Vactra #2 way oil.
 
You have a mill now, you can make some smaller T-nuts :)

Well yeah, but I need the t-nuts to bolt the vise down to hold the material to make the t-nuts...I'm so confused...:rolleyes:

Thanks for the tips on way oil and coolant. I think one of the inexpensive mixing blocks and a cobbled up container will do for hobby work.
 
Looks like a good deal to me, you got a set of collets,end mills,mag base/DI, a decent looking vise and an almost brand new milling machine and save at least $300 or more.congratulations.
A clamping kit will be a wise first buy in my opinion, a handy thing to have and you can bolt down your vise using the T nuts from the set .
 
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