"Peter Grey" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Kelley Mascher" wrote in message
...

Big snip---

I'll just add one more thing. A lot of people say that the mill/drills
are pretty worthless. If this was the case there should be a lot of
these things for sale used. I think the truth is that they make such
good drill presses that people seldom sell them even when they upgrade
to a larger mill.

Cheers,

Kelley

Yep, I agree. Actually, Grant has me wrong, although my last post
clearly
stated that I wouldn't own a mill drill. In an earlier post I did
suggest
them make a good heavy duty drill press, and I would gladly welcome one
for
that function. I'm spoiled in that I already own a knee mill, so it's
for
that reason I made my last bold statement, obviously not a clear and
full
statement about my real meaning. I also agree that if one has no
others
choices in life, a mill drill is far better than a file.


So here's a question. Penn Tool has an inexpensive knee mill (see
http://www.penntoolco.com/catalog/products/4487.cfm) that would fit into
my
shop as well as a DM45 or RF30 would. The problem I see with it is that
with only 11.2" spindle to table, and 3.2" of spindle travel, it's
severely
limited as a drill press. IOW, it may be a better mill but drilling holes
in going to be a PITA. For an all-rounder such as myself this limits its
attractiveness. If I bought this knee mill, wouldn't a need a real drill
press too? BTW, when using a knee mill, does the table or knee need to be
in the full elevated position when milling or drilling?

Peter

I'm of the opinion that you'd still be better served with a knee mill, in
spite of the limited quill travel. You'll still be able to do some serious
drilling with it, even relatively deep holes. What you do is raise and
lower the knee if you run out of travel with the quill, and with the knee
you don't lose orientation so long as the head is dialed true to the table.
That's not true of mill drills, which come with the round column.

In the real world, you're not likely to encounter the scenario of drilling
through three inches often, though, so it's not as bad as it may sound.
Regardless of frequency, it is far and away more convenient that constantly
trying to re-establish orientation each time you move the head on a mill
drill. In reality, that's my one and only serious gripe about them. If
they'd key the column such that they didn't turn when moved, I'd likely have
nothing negative to say about them.

When using a knee type mill, there's no real advantage to running the
machine with the knee in any particular position. It's engineered and built
such that it should be as useful at the top as at the bottom, the only
exception being if you were taking some extremely serious cuts, the knee
might resist flexing slightly better at the bottom, near the base, there the
column length has been reduced to a minimum, and is slightly heavier in
section than it is higher up, due to the slight taper that is generally a
part of the design of that type of machine. For the most part, it's a
point not worthy of discussion.

Harold