Looking for the best "overall" benchtop cnc mill and lathe.

Looking for recommendations based on experience, or research from the many talented contributers to this forum.

I will be making small pieces, mainly from 1" cubic, but capacity up to perhaps 6"x4"x2", ideally to within 0.001", in runs from 5 to 200. Material will vary from mild steel, stainless steel and pre-heat treated tool and hss (m2, h13, t15). Some aluminium, but not much.

2 cnc axis on the lathe is fine, max. dia through the head 1.5" (would really like 2" but could be too big/expensive). Dont need more than 8" dia swing, however, interested in an attachment that would allow cylindrical grinding (internal and external) off the tailstock or carriage.

The mill must be 3 axis and would require a programmable rotational 4th axis.

I have been looking at the tormach for milling - no idea on a lathe.

I have perhaps 15k to 20k for everything including software.

I am located in Canada.

Please comment

i'ld try to get my hands on a golmatic style machine if you are sure you need 2-1 mill'n'lathe.

If any available near to you an original golmatic would kick ass'.
http://www.mdaprecision.com/Products/GOLmatic%20Products/MD23Product/MD23%20main.html.

tormach just came up with their duality lathe thats supposed to be bolted onto the tormachmill turning it into to a cnc lathe.

if not in a hurried production environment and you can easily prospoon making parts for another month i'ld go retro a golmatic and for many chips to come i wouldn't even consider adding or destracting anymore then steppers to the machine itself.And i'm pretty confident that even without ballscrews it will be one hell of a machine and i don't think there will be any more backlash then most ballscrews though you will need bigger steppers then if ballscrews were mounted but you might want to consider sevo's or some other means of closing the loop cause losing steps would really be a waste of the machine.

as you can see i'm very fond of the golmatic machines but i never operated a golmatic nore a tormach so you might want to lots o reading especially on the tormach duality lathe wich might be a ready to run cnc solution for your needs while a golmatic would mean doing your own retro/having someone retroing one.the golmatic will use up your complete budget wich leaves you with no tooling while i think the tormach will come all tooled up for 20k.

i just felt i should chime right in when you mentioned 2-1 ,i just wanted to point these machines out before someone talks you out of 2-1 because of all the way poor quality and design 2-1combo's out there.

good lukk ,whatever you deside keep us posted

You are looking for a benchtop machine that can hold tolerances in limited production runs in stainless and tool steels. My guess is that you are going to have to give up one of those three things. 6"x4" is not small when it's in a hard material like M2.

One thing that might be useful would be to figure out your software needs and then determine how much money you have left. Also when you say "benchtop" do you mean something one person can pick up, a few hundred pounds, smaller than a Bridgeport, or what?

There is what looks like a Chinese knock-off, similar to the Golmatic, available in the UK.

http://www.chesteruk.net/store/cestrian_multi_function_machine.htm

Phil

i'ld try to get my hands on a golmatic style machine if you are sure you need 2-1 mill'n'lathe.

If any available near to you an original golmatic would kick ass'.