Folks Of Interest Is there a good machining website? Hope this doesn’t break a rule.

Years back there was a good newsgroup I read. I know many of you guys/gals machine a lot of your own stuff.
My interest lies in looking for a used bench top mill (not 3 in 1) and would like to get some input and advice such as given here on the HAMB.
Sure wish I had room to keep my SB mill when I moved, but couldn’t fit it through my front door at the time

 

https://www.machinistweb.com/forum

Not extremely active, but has a good participant base.

Roger

 

Try the Home Shop Machinist.
https://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/?s=09996cc06bd43487d1879d531bd74008

 

I have a Rong Fu JFC45 N2F (Taiwan). Dovetail column benchtop mill. More or less the same envelope as an average BP type machine. I have made a ton of money with it. There are oodles of clones of this machine out there ("RF45's").
I used to use CNC zone. They have benchtop groups. https://www.cnczone.com/forums/rf-45-clone-mill/ .
Look at https://www.penntoolco.com/shop/?se...hy:Machine$2520Tools$253EMilling$2520Machines . They sell 509 different milling machines. Good resource to figure out what you find for sale out there. I got mine from them. New, but it fell over and I had to fix some sheet metal. I got a very good price. That was 20+ years ago. The real Rong Fu's are 8X what I paid for mine, these days. Mike

 

https://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/

 

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/

Of course there's always,
https://www.garagejournal.com/

 

Every growing boy should have a mill. Then you will think of your drill press as a primitive cave man tool. Good luck on your search.

 

My SB was the only tool I ever sold in my life.

 

www.hobby-machinest.com/forums/
Good site with good info for the new want -to- learn and expert machinest. Many how to subjects with Q&A.

 

Pick up a good basic machining text book. It will give you info on speeds and feeds, lathe tooling set up, etc. Even a used older book will come in handy.

 

Practical Machinist has every topic covered including old equipment and methods, keep scrolling.

 

Bridgeport Series I, or reputable clone, with a three axis DRO, static or rotary phase converter.

 

My Bridgeport is old and now a clunker after 34 years in my greasy hands. The bottom is a '62 vintage, the head is a '67 piece with the variable speed. The DRO is beyond fixing, the power feed took a dump on me, I do have a new spindle in the box and another table drive for it. I run a static converter, I have another 1 or 2 spares. If and when I do my garage over, I'll be looking for a newer mill.

 

That's why I suggested the possibility of a reputable clone. There are some good ones out there.

I have a Do-All clone from the early 1990's, with an Acu-Rite VUE DRO. Between that, and an electronic probe, I can produce CAD/CAM-like results.

It was well cared for by the machinist father of a friend of mine, and now lives on in my shop.

I added to it power feeds on X, and Z, both with auto stops.

 

I would take a clone if a nice one popped up. I saw an Alliant in a friend's shop, it served him well for a long time. He took care of his stuff.

 

Try here for home/hobby machining:
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/forums/

There are also lots of Youtube channels on machining. Some to check out: This Old Tony, Blondihacks, mrpete222, Joe Pie, Abom79.