Lathe or Milling Machine???

[Pat Comeau]

Hi Guy's,
i'm thinking of buying a lathe or milling machine but don't want to spend a fortune you know what i meam... , i've been looking at some mini combo mill but read some reviews that it's better to buy them separatly ,anyone who has a combo mini mill could advice me on that, what would be the best thing to buy? example...(min lathe, mini mill or mini combo of both)?, and what should i look for in size and travel ect...?, i need something to turn shaft and be able to mill endplates, keyheads, pickup and changer plate mount, roller nut bridge and roller nuts ect..., can i mill with a lathe? , can i turn shaft with a mill?, i don't need something to big cause i'm short in space in my shop. .

any informations would be appreciated , thanks:) .

Pat C

[Bent]

Pat. I would recommend you get a robust little "Mill -Drill type of mill. Even a free-standing regular mill doesn't take up any more space than a regular drill press.
Then you get yourself a rotary table. It will do the work of a lathe, for the few lathe operations needed in steel building.

[ljs]

Hi Pat, I have a Smithy 1220 3 in 1. Now it's a good little machine, and probably as much as I will ever need. But....If I was to do it all over again, I would probably move up to the Midas 1220 LTD as a minimum. Or if room and money were no object, a seperate Bridgeport type mill and a nice seperate lathe like the Midas CZ1236, or similar. The 1220 I have has several drawbacks. It requires fairly frequent gib adjustments. It does have the tapered ways which unlike some of the lower cost mini-lathes out there that have square ones. I believe the tapered gibs make it easier to adjust the gib over the length of the travel. It also has an increasing amount of feed screw backlash or slop. I do oil and maintain my machine very well so I don't think this is a matter of poor maintenance. The 1220 also has a limited amount of cross-slide travel at 3 1/4". This is also the table used for milling so it puts limits on some projects. When I was adding cross-shafts to a previously owned GFI, I wasn't able to find 5/16" square stock so I got 3/8" square and milled it down. This required a re-chucking in the milling vise to obtain the 5 3/4" length needed. The 1220 also has no half-nut for threading so though you can thread on it, it is for me very intense. You can't let your mind wander one bit. The one thing that I feel they need to improve upon the 1220 though is the fine-feed calibration of the milling/drilling down feed. At .042" this is not enough of a fine feed to accurately determine a milling depth of cut. Though I do see that going from the 1220 to the 1220 LTD would not solve that problem for it is the same. I have tried to mount a dial indicatoe on the milling column to determine the amount of feed, but as of yet haven't come up with a good way to do it.
Back to the original question. I think a 3 in 1 is fine especially if room is a premium. You can get a lot of machine in a 24" x36" area. But going from a turning operation to a milling operation requires a bit of a switch over. Now that I've confused everybody including myself.....I'll sign off.
LaVern Skarzenski

[Scott Howard]

I have a small combo unit and would do it different if I was doing it over. For one it was plenty big enough when I bought it but now it seems like I wis it was bigger. For guitar parts other than say a rear apron , endplates or something like that is is fine. I did however redo my rear apron and it was fun.

The biggest drawback to a combo seems to be setup time. It never fails you spend a bunch of time setting something up and then to use the other unit you have so much to change.

It will get the job done and it is a good way to get your feet wet. You can always move up later to bigger machines and keep the small unit setup for some small operation you do a bunch.

[Bill Ladd]

Pat. I would recommend you get a robust little "Mill -Drill type of mill. Even a free-standing regular mill doesn't take up any more space than a regular drill press.
Then you get yourself a rotary table. It will do the work of a lathe, for the few lathe operations needed in steel building.

Amen to that. I have a mini-lathe with a milling attachment in my shop. I also have a very good friend with an industrial machine shop. I spend a lot more time over at his shop on the milling machines than I do with my teeny little attachment at home.