Nod. The spare parts kit is because the gears have been described by some as "made from cheese" and prone to exploding when you're in the middle of something important.
I went with the 2 sets of cutters in order to have 4-flute cutters for mild steel, and 2-flute for aluminum, but figure than in a pinch if I break a cutter when I need it most, I can substitute the matching sized one from the other set with some mild tweaking in speeds/feeds.
The X1 does come with a drawbar, buts it's metric (M10 I think) and only fits the drill chuck. If you're getting imperial collets, you'll need the matching drawbar.
If you're only going for a manual mill, you may want a boring head and bars if you need to make large precise holes. I plan to go CNC and don't think I'll need precise holes just yet, so didn't get one.
Since you're going manual, I can heartily recommend you look at the X2, it will push your budget, but you can always stock up on the bits and stuff later on, you can't easily swap out your machine if you find it too small to begin with, and as mentioned, lots more info on the X2.
*I* only ended up with the X1 because I'm in Canada. I could get the X1 shipped for a decent price, but X2s locally cost almost 3 times what people pay in the US, and shipping an X2 from the US would have put the cost close to 2.5 times what people pay in the US. The distributors here must be making a sick profit.
I just didn't have the cash to buy it, tool it up, and then CNC the slightly trickier Z-axis, but that shouldn't be a problem for you!
Cheers,
David  |