"Trevor Jones" wrote in message
...

OK, this is going to look a bit funny, but, here goes.

You want to make brackets and stuff for your projects. No NASA
contracts, no defense industry prototypes. Nothing too critical. No
tolerances to a half-zillionth.

Exactly.



For a metalworker that will generally be laying out his lines directly
on the stock, and cutting to a line, these are a GREAT bargain. They are
a darn useful tool that doubles as a decent drill press (the extra
headroom, above, helps when using full length drills). This gives you
that much more space in the shop. (small enough space as it is).

I'm assuming that the distance from the spindle to the table will tell me
whether it's long or short, yes? How much taller is the tall column?

I have a Centec 2A. It's a great little milling machine. In 500 lbs of
cast iron, and a steel stand, I get slightly more volume to work with
than if I had a sherline mill. It has MT-2 tapers (same as my lathes
tooling-makes for compatability) in it's vertical and horizontal
spindles. It has a power feed. Nice stuff. Not nearly what you will
want.

Not what I'd want because it's too small? IOW, it's very stiff but can't
work with pieces any bigger than I would with a mini-mill?

All for more than it would have cost me to buy a new RF-30 and
tooling. It fills my needs (mostly) and I like it. I would not consider
it for what you are describing as your needs. In fact, as I STILL don't
have a decent drill press, I am still considering getting a RF-30 for
things larger than I can otherwise deal with, on the cheap. The Centec
2B is a bit larger, but not by an amount that you would appreciate.
I have used an RF-30 a lot. The inability to hold zero when raising and
lowering the head is not as much of a deal as you might think. It makes
good fodder for arguing over, though. Again, we are talking about
fabbing brackets and such for your projects, not building cylinder heads
from billet stock, right?

Correct.

In my opinion, you will get more table space from an RF-30 than from
anything else you can afford, both in cash and space, without getting
very lucky. Of course, some of the best machine tool scrounges I've ever
heard of are in your neck of the woods. Luck might not be so hard to
find in this case. Still tough to beat the amount of capacity, for the
amount of shop space used for the RF-30.


I'm talking to one person on this board and will call some new and used
machine tool dealers today. If I can't find anything decent used and close
within a reasonable period of time, I'll go buy the RF 30 or maybe
(probably??) the Penn Tool drill/mill with the dovetail. It's $400 (plus
shipping) more than the round column model.

Anyway, that's my two bits worth.

In short, look at your "needs" at least as hard as you look at your
"wants".

Based on my experiences, I think that you will likely find what you
need in the RF-30 mill drill.

Thanks for your realistic response.

Peter