im looking for a mill, manual is ok at first so long as it can be converted to CNC later.. ive thought about buying a bridgeport to completely rebuild with ball screws, servo motors, etc into a four axis machine but bridgeports are very, very heavy and large and the type of work i will be doing is much, much smaller than what the bridgeports are capable of
i need a mill for firearm-related work, to build parts like receivers, trunnions, bolt carriers etc out of steel so im looking for a smaller option with those capabilities and was looking for some advice on which machines to look into?
Tormach and Novakon both offer two size machines and are already cnc. There are smaller machines as well, but haven't researched them as extensively as I have these two.
What kind of budget and space restrictions do you have?
well, lets look at my baseline that i would need to beat in order for me to purchase a different mill.. i already have a cnc controller, stop switches, DRO, may need a bigger power supply and motors.. looking at a bridgeport conversion kit i notice they used nema 42 servo motors at like $300-$400 on ebay, found a ballscrew set for $900.. plus the cost of a used machine, other misc parts, i believe i can do a bridgeport rebuild with ballscrews and a CNC upgrade for the final product i want for under $5,000 so anything bigger or heavier than a bridgeport or more expensive than $5,000 i wont consider
thing is, bridgeports are very large, i simply do not need 42" travel, even 18 inches is sufficient so what i want to find is something smaller, lighter, less expensive than a bridgeport of a smaller travel size, smaller footprint, that can still accurately machine steel
what about mills like the sieg x3 and the BF20 which seem to be competing designs of adequate capabilities?
these seem to be rather small mills, so im also considering the RF45 and industrial hobbies mill.. these are much larger, heavier than the others, but still not nearly as big as the bridgeport.. about half the size of those, still plenty of travel, plenty of strength, and still plenty of aftermarket
and lastly.. does anyone make scaled clones of the bridgeport that are a good candidate?
Last edited by justin22885; 10-18-2014 at 02:03 PM.
Are you intending to make money out of this venture? $5,000 may need to be revised if you are, even a Tormach 770 is $7,000 for the base machine.
You may be disappointed in the performance of a retrofit like Bridgeport or smaller machines. Finding a cheap older machine locally may be something to look into.
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