Picked up a mini mill

[Revolver]

For about 5 years I've been wanting to dabble with machining metal. I weld, mess around with aluminum casting, etc. so it is a natural desire. Specifically I want to be able to machine some of my aluminum castings so I can make higher precision items. I've mulled over the harbor freight cheapo mills and lathes and kept deciding to think about it later because even though I do have some decent HF tools I don't fully trust their quality.

Today I found a Little Machine Shop Hi Torque Mini Mill locally, about 1 year old. Came with a chuck, vise, 2 digital readouts, and some tooling. The young machinist that sold it to me had just picked up a beastly Bridgeport, that thing is HUGE. He was nice enough to give me a crash course on how the machine works, some tips, some tools and bits, etc. as well as suggest some literature to get me started.

This is the unit here... http://littlemachineshop.com/3900

So, did I do ok for a home hobby mill?

Now to find a lathe.

[Love Life]

Sweet buy and I hope you have a ton of fun with it!!

[LUBEDUDE]

Cograts Rev! That is awesome.

Can't wait to see what you build now.

[oldred]

That mill is a Seig and is a very popular mini mill sold under several brand names by Little Machine Shop, Harbor Freight, Grizzly and a host of other companies and they have developed a decent reputation and quite a following- and for good reason. When used within their limits they have been known to turn out some high quality work.


Just a note about the quality of the Harbor Freight machine tools, they are the same quality as machines of the same model/type sold by other dealers with about the only difference being the color and usually the price, the HF outfits were once quite a bit cheaper but are priced similarly these days. Common brand names of these same machines are sold for wildly varying prices but under the paint they are still the same, for example Enco sells a popular 14x40 engine lathe that goes for over $1000 more than the same machine from HF. I use one of these things almost every day and the Enco version, which I also operate sometimes, is the EXACT same machine except for the color. I mention this because a lot of guys here are interested in these small mills and lathes and I just wanted to point this out because there is no reason to avoid one of the machines just because it was sold by Harbor Freight. Another example was about 4 years ago some of the larger HF lathes actually came with a Birmingham (a well known brand that sells for quite a bit more) operator's/parts manual! The HF machines are not of an inferior quality to an identical machine with a different brand name on it, a Seig mini mill like that one is a decent well rated machine and can be used to accomplish a lot but a Seig is still a Seig no matter who sold it.

[Revolver]

Oldred, thank you for all that information. Very good to know that this is common machine with readily available parts and accessories. :)

[oldred]

I think you will come to like that little fella a lot! If you go easy on it and don't push it then it will do about any job you can fit onto the table. There are several after market mods such as a belt drive to replace the fairly unreliable (and very noisy) gear drive that are not very expensive or of course now you could just make your own but most of these are just extras and not really necessities. Home machining is a serious disease that's 100% incurable so don't even try, just make it easy on yourself and go ahead and get that lathe, and that,,,,,,,,well it just never ends BUT then neither does the fun!

[41 mag fan]

Time to turn out Ar lowers and uppers!!

[SlippShodd]

...but under the paint they are still the same, for example Enco sells a popular 14x40 engine lathe that goes for over $1000 more than the same machine from HF.

I have a 14x40 that I ordered long ago as a Tida, only it arrived as a Lincoln. And when I need parts for it, I call Harbor Freight, 'cuz it was so obviously the same lathe and they're easier to get the parts from than just about any of the machine tool companies around here, never mind the jobber in CA that sold me the thing then split town. :)

mike

[oldred]

I learned about this the hard way, years ago I was looking for a small lathe because I had no room for a big one but I wanted a good one so I bought a 9x20 Jet which was supposed to be the top-of-the-line. Grizzly, Enco, Harbor Freight and many others all had a 9x20 lathe that looked suspiciously like my expensive little Jet and about a year after I bought it I found out why they looked so much like it! In a trade I took in a puke-purple colored HF 9x20 lathe that I thought at the time was a rip-off copy of my Jet, which by then I was learning was not one to brag about. Turns out the only difference besides price was the color. I paid over $1200 for that *** Jet at Northern Tool only to later learn that HF about 5 miles away had the same machine for $699 regular price but almost always on sale for $599! Prices on both machines are higher now and while then the Jet and the others were identical the newer Jet model has some COSMETIC changes but under that it's still the same.

Since getting into this I have learned a lot about these machines and where they come from and I now know that the same models are sold by different distributors, of course they all claim to be better than the others but don't fall for that. Take any particular model and it is made at a factory in China, the distributor orders how many he wants and they paint them to his specs and place his brand name tag on them then when that order is filled they build another order for a different distributor and so on. Contrary to popular internet lore there is no inspector that goes around and sorts out the rejects to send to Harbor Freight!

I have been searching for it but can't find it right now but anyway there was a picture around a couple of years ago taken on a shipping floor at a Chinese factory where some milling machinery was being crated. The names had been obscured in the photo but there were three well known colors of machinery sitting side by side waiting to be crated and shipped to various distributors from the same factory. The bottom line is anyone, including any of us, could order a minimum number of machines from that factory and they will happily paint them any color we want and put any available brand name on it that we could dream up.

[10x]

I learned about this the hard way, years ago I was looking for a small lathe because I had no room for a big one but I wanted a good one so I bought a 9x20 Jet which was supposed to be the top-of-the-line. Grizzly, Enco, Harbor Freight and many others all had a 9x20 lathe that looked suspiciously like my expensive little Jet and about a year after I bought it I found out why they looked so much like it! In a trade I took in a puke-purple colored HF 9x20 lathe that I thought at the time was a rip-off copy of my Jet, which by then I was learning was not one to brag about. Turns out the only difference besides price was the color. I paid over $1200 for that *** Jet at Northern Tool only to later learn that HF about 5 miles away had the same machine for $699 regular price but almost always on sale for $599! Prices on both machines are higher now and while then the Jet and the others were identical the newer Jet model has some COSMETIC changes but under that it's still the same.

Since getting into this I have learned a lot about these machines and where they come from and I now know that the same models are sold by different distributors, of course they all claim to be better than the others but don't fall for that. Take any particular model and it is made at a factory in China, the distributor orders how many he wants and they paint them to his specs and place his brand name tag on them then when that order is filled they build another order for a different distributor and so on. Contrary to popular internet lore there is no inspector that goes around and sorts out the rejects to send to Harbor Freight!

I have been searching for it but can't find it right now but anyway there was a picture around a couple of years ago taken on a shipping floor at a Chinese factory where some milling machinery was being crated. The names had been obscured in the photo but there were three well known colors of machinery sitting side by side waiting to be crated and shipped to various distributors from the same factory. The bottom line is anyone, including any of us, could order a minimum number of machines from that factory and they will happily paint them any color we want and put any available brand name on it that we could dream up.


The same is true of some lines of rifle scope.
Some of the cheap Chicom knock offs come out of the same factory and off the same production line as some very expensive lines of optics.
Only the labeling is different.
Then again there are some factories producing counterfeit optics with much lower quality materials on the same pattern. Or they will do a run of optics with materials that are not quite up to spec and put another name on it. Any off brand optics with electronic bits are not likely to have high end electronic components.

A local fellow collects ChiCom wrist watches and has one of the most complete collections in the world. The workmanship and quality of the top end, for the chinese market only, watches is equal to any watch made in Europe. Yes they still make treadle sewing machines, and wind up wrist watches.

[KCSO]

That is my small unit in the shop and I have done a ton of work on one of those. First off if it still has the plastic gears order up a set of the steel gears and put them in NOW before you set up the mill. The plastic gears will shatter if anything jams up or if you ever forget to pull the lock pin out before starting. Use a good moly grease in the gear train and keep your tooling sharp and you will be able to do any gunsmithing job you want to do IF you have aptience and go SLOW. You won't do any hogging with this one but you can do good precision work. I have the collet system on mine and like the quick change. This is just like guns and casting as it's not the price of the item it's the cost of the acessories, mills key way cutters, center finders, vise and rotary table.... need I go on?

[oldred]

KSCO, You mention collets so let me add to that and point out something here that is probably one of, if not the, most common mistakes a new mill operator might make and that is to attempt to use an end mill in a drill chuck- DON'T DO THAT! For the same reason a collet must be held in place with a draw bar a drill chuck WILL fall out when running and at best will break the end mill, at worst it will ruin the part and/or cause personal injury! The reason is that the taper fit can not take side loading and with the shaft spinning and no vertical load the taper will work free usually in just a few seconds but even if it starts out tight it don't usually stay put very long. Even if the chuck arbor has a draw bar end thread (some do) it still will not work because the chuck itself is held onto that arbor only by the Jacobs Taper on the other end, lots of guys learn about this the hard way by attempting to mill on a drill press. There are of course the Darwin Award contestants out there who will argue this point and insist they use a drill chuck all the time and I guess sometimes they MIGHT get away with it for a while if the chuck happens to be stuck super tight but even so it won't be forever before it does catch up with them and then it's Katie-Bar-The-Door!