Originally Posted by ganderboy  Im a big fan of the Tormach Mill. Im just about to purchase on myself, and have 2 friends that have them in there shops and love them. I've used the mill quite abit and its got an amazing bang for the buck . And its working envelope is almost the same as a hass mini mill.
Im surprised aswell that I havent seen anyone thats added an automatic collet closer. I plan to put one on my tormach right away. I did talk to Greg at Tormach awhile back though and he suggested that an air ratchet to loosen and tighten the drawbolt up will speed tool changes up. I thougth that was a great idea also.
Hopefully tormach will come out with a nice nc lathe in the next few years.
I do disagree with Bob warfield's post though. Im an ebay hound and you cant get a late 90's nc knee mill for the same price as a Tormach. Most of them go for 10g or more. Sure there bigger machines and theres more cast iron there but come on!! If they dont then there a 2 axis setup which in my opinion is a waste of time. Any machine that Ive seen on ebay for the 6 to 10 grand price point has been an early 90's or 80's machine with an outdated control thats bound to die and need to be replaced for 5 or 6 grand.
Just my thoughts.
Take care
Dennis in Vancouver |
Dennis, you want one with the control already dead because that lowers the price considerably. To refit with Geckos or Uhus and a PC running Mach 3 will not cost anything like $5K, and then you know just what you've got. Plenty of other fellas on these boards have done exactly that. Seek out their threads and take a look.
In terms of what has sold on eBay just in the last 30 days (you can't see completed auction going back very far) so you know what they actually sold for, consider these:
190238524995: 1984 Alliant CNC Knee Mill, newly retrofited, low hours. Kurt vise, misting system, and other tooling. $7600.
140250710449: 1993 Bridgeport VMC 100. $7100. Tooling for $250 more. That's a working VMC with toolchanger.
250268450223: Bridgeport Series I with Anilam control. $7090.
370069818090: Kondia CNC Knee mill. $4250.
140251675459: Lagun 2-axis. $3001.
160263611404: 1981 Matsura VMC. I've heard lots of recommendations for these over on PM. Toolchanger and the whole nine yards sold for $2750.
360071982494: Shizuoka CNC knee mill, $2950.
This list goes on, those are just the most expensive machines. CNC knee mills aren't worth that much to industry because they aren't nearly as productive as a VMC. No toolchanger for one.
Craigslist has more of the same, similar prices.
Tormach makes a good home hobby machine, but you can do better for production, and the deals are out there on eBay if you look carefully.
Cheers,
BW