Please help. Best knee mill.

[mnemonic]

I am looking for a new 10" x 50"+ knee mill. 3HP+. I want the best QUALITY mill i can find. I want something with hardened ways and bed! I want something that is going to be precison. I am willing to pay for quality. I was looking at a bridgeport but it seemed a little small for me and also i was surprised to find no hardened ways or BED! I have a mill without a hardened bed, and i will never go that route again. I also have a grizzly 9x48 2hp with hardened bed which i like, but I am not really happy with the rigidity or accuracy of it. I want something heavy duty and precise, and i expect to pay for it. I just recently upgraded my lathe to a Clausing Metosa 14x40 w/ 8" chuck and i am VERY happy with it, but i know Clausing's mill comes from Taiwan not spain like my Metosa. I am scared to death of Taiwan after my Grizzly! The mill i have know shakes the building if try to take to much of a cut. Also i noticed if i pull on the end of the table i can move my dial .005! It is pivoting on the sadle! I tried tightening it up and the damn thing gets unusable to crank. I do not want any more Grizzly junk!

I think i would rather go with an ISO 40 taper, again, for rigidity or maybe ISO 30. We do in-house tool and die work, and sometimes it requires some heavy machining of A2.

Your suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!

[RB Precision]

Check out the Sharp TMV or TMV1 you can get it with Mill Power also

http://www.sharp-industries.com/mills/tmv.html

[doanwannapickle]

Originally Posted by RB Precision Check out the Sharp TMV or TMV1 you can get it with Mill Power also http://www.sharp-industries.com/mills/tmv.html

I'll second that. Sharp has good machinery AND they are the kind of dealer that will be there with fairly priced replacement parts 15 or 20 years down the road.

[Karl_T]

i just bought this Supermax. One serious knee mill.
http://www.metalworking.com:80/dropb...from_scale.jpg

There's also a Lagun FTV-4 that's very similar.
http://www.lagun.com/products/vertic...cal_mills.html

[mrzero]

Here's the best quality 10x48 I've come across with 3 hp Made in USA of USA castings
we have one in our shop and it hogs with ease, holds good tolarances and have no complaints would recomind it, hell, I'm thinking of getting another. just like you mnemonic, we've had it with china junk our old machines litterally shook parts onto the floor and did spooky things all by itself like a poltergeist was in charge.
http://www.wellsindex.com/

[gatch21]

My company is in the market for a vertical knee mill with digital readout. Which brand would you consider the most rigid and reliable?

Thanks, Dave

[crabbass]

I would like to see a vertical knee mill with features like a motorized spindle(compact), and a pneumatic drawbar like the ones in a typical cnc(electric selenoid operated by a push of a button) and spindle tapers like ct-bt-30-40 hsk, capto,etc. One idea I have had for a machine would be to have a nice high speed spindle on one side of the turret ram, and you could rotate the ram around to use a heavy geared head spindle mounted on the other side. Other options, Box ways-hand scraped, turcite and hard chrome options, A simple Dro would be nice, but if you wanted cnc features, z axis could be a combination between the knee and quill. "Feedback" or a resistance would be felt when turning a hand crank or quill lever.

I have had soo many of these ideas throught the years, but I am curious if I am one of few that want all of this in the "bridgeport style mill" or are there others out there that also desire some of the "big-boy cnc" features in their toolroom equipment.

[universalfab]

Hi Dave, I'd recommend a bridgeport. We get .0009 tolerances out of ours it's has a cast precision ground bed and ways, it's a little old, but like new. We keep everything spick and span and lubed. As for reliability, we've never had a problem and as with most machinery if you get a good quallity peice of machinery that was built by people who know what there doing "unlike all this overseas garbage some here are talking about, which I totally agree" you'll get a machine that is pretty much maintnance free. Unless you consider whiping it down maintnance.

Originally Posted by gatch21 My company is in the market for a vertical knee mill with digital readout. Which brand would you consider the most rigid and reliable? Thanks, Dave