Mill/Drill combo or go with just a Drill Press

You can always add a DRO(Digital Read Out) if you find a low priced machine without it.

 

^What I did^ $300.
"Some assembly was required"
Just don't buy one that's totally worn out.

 

My bridgeport was the best $500.00 I ever spent. I use it almost everyday...

 

i paid $500 for my mill/drill, it came out of a wood working business, i don't think it ever milled anything, this is the second one i have used, yes i do mill on mine, i just take small cuts, make sure the head is nice and tight so it doesnt turn, even if all i used it for was a drill press it still would be the best $500 i ever spent.

 

Now, since the chuck is mounted on a taper, it takes very little movement before the taper releases entirely. At that point, you have a two-pound steel ball with a knife blade on one end flying through the air and spinning at a thousand RPM.

If you're lucky, you'll avoid having it fall into your lap. If you're not...

This is NOT a true representation of the machine or how it operates. Who ever wrote this doesnt or hasnt had one. My end dmills went in to an endmill holder which was secured from the top be a drawbolt and had a set screw holding them in position. I never on once in the 1000 plus times i used the mill function had a endmill drop out. The machine is more MILL than drill and as any fool knows you can alway drill on a mill. but can't mill on a drill. I spent a year going through what you are right now wondering , listening to "Experts"Then i started asking them have you ever actually used one or have you ever actually seen one on operation.. After the usual attempts at BSing around the question i realized, no, they didnt know what they were talking about , they were just supposing . I ordered mine that same day and NEVER regretted once owning it and using it. I remember the day one of the guys who spent so much time discouraging me about owning one was in a jam and wondered if he could use "that machine My reply?" not a chance of a snowball in hell of you using my machine. Had I listened to you and your freaky friends i would not have "That machine" as you call it!" Now as i look back i wonder "why did I even ask them?
Don
In fact if you go back to my post with the photo and using the zoom function on the right hand bottom of your screen. Set it to 400% and look at the picture just above the piston. You can see the flycutter (which I first made on this machine itself) firmly mounted in the Endmill holder i just spoke of. The endmill holder and even the angle vise holding the piston came with the original machine as standard equipment.

 

I say bridgeport, but Im spoiled.

 

I have a Grizzly Mill-Drill and I'm pretty happy with it.

Used mills sell for big $$ around here, plus they're all three-phase.

I rent and only have 120V in my shop so a mill-drill is a no-brainer.

Best thing I bought to go with it was the rotary table. A three-jaw lathe chuck with a morse taper drops right in the center of the rotary table. Makes re-drilling hubs, rotors and drums an absolute breeze.

Shawn

 

Anyone ever use a jigbore?

 

I bought an Enco mill-drill back in 1986 because I wanted to buy from someone that might stay in business. They are still going. It's not a Bridgeport but I have made alot of parts on it. After I saved up enough money, I bought an Enco 12 X 36 geared head lathe. I make 95% of all the parts I need. Every once in a while I need larger capacity equipment. At some point, a guy has to figure out how much money he has and make a decision.

 

i have a Bridgeport , a Enco mill/drill and a drill press...i use them all

 

Dolmetsch, my buddy has a Smithy. He keeps saying he wants to upgrade, but it never happens, and we just seem to keep cranking out projects on it. He has a nice Jet mill (B-port clone) so we only use the Smithy as a lathe, but it gets the job done.

 

A mill/drill works Ok until you use a real mill... the capabilities are so much more with a real machine...kinda like going top fuel racing with a stock 354...yeah it's a Hemi but don't expect 300 MPH.

 

I think for a hobbyist, a mill-drill is fine.

Anything beyond the capabilites of that machine might as well be sent out for how often it would occur.

For a full-time shop, that's another story.

Shawn

 

Either I'm seeing double, or Beaker has a stutter.

 

Fixed.

Strange, I only hit the button once.

Shawn

 

I think what you want to know is whether a mill drill will do what a drill press does.

The answer is yes, for most work you would ask a drill press to do it'll be fine.

Is a mill drill a Bridgeport?

No. But it will not cost like a Bport or take up as much precious workshop space either. For many of us the space thing is an extremely important consideration.

My experience with a mill drill (15 years now) has been that it allows you to do light machining jobs and get a taste for machining if you have never done any. You will be able to do all sorts of little jobs that you could only dream of before.

FWIW, most of these mill drills are Chinese "Rong Fu" variants, all spare parts are reasonably priced and are available from Grizzly ( I bought parts for mine from them and it isn't even a Grizzly machine). If you have high school shop experience you will probably be quite happy with a reasonably priced decent condition used mill drill.

A good source of info on these is the Yahoo Forum ( there seems to be a forum for everything now, right?) here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mill_drill/

On the (generic) Bridgeport side, many industrial milling machines are clapped out but can be used for hobby use (this is a hobby, right?) if absolute precision is not required.

In the end it's kinda like buying a car, if it's reasonably priced and doesn't look like it's been abused, go for it, you probably won't be disappointed.


My own little piece of home workshop machining hell:
Mill-drill retro fitted to CNC with ballscrews and servo motors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRAGhC3KWw
1000$ Kijiji Bridgeport CNC mill with new electronics, accurate to the thou:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HrHUwWYkwY

 

Grizzly G0704 is built well and works like a charm. You can easily install some DROS for around a hundred bucks, I did and it makes thing a lot easier than counting dials.

 

As a machinist with over 30 yrs experience, this is a no brainer. Mill all the way. Even a heavy duty bench top mill is more useful than any drill press. Bridgeport types are best. Around here a BP can be had with all tooling for about 2 grand. Rotary phase converters can be built from free online plans very cheap, but they do not like cold weather.

 

8 yr. old post. The o/p probably already made a decision .

 

$100 for DROs? Price must have come down a lot since I bought mine.

 

Even though this is an old thread, I think I should comment on this. "heatnbeat" is correct in stating that these are available, but he fails to mention that you lose a lot of power through them. I think the figure usually quoted is 33-37%. I have one on a floor model drill press that I got cheap, and while it does work, it has marginal power. The guy that I got the press from stopped by the shop and commented on how "wimpy" it was. He of course, had been running it on 3-phase power.