"Lennie the Lurker" wrote in message
om...
"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

Hey, not a bad looking machine for the bucks. Mind you, I'm not a fan
of
round column machines, but at that price, it lets the guy in that
otherwise
may not have a shot at a small machine. I can see where a hobbyist
that
has limited funds could be well served by that little sucker! Just
don't
expect the performance of a Gorton from it.

Harold

OOOOOPS! my mistake, or their catalog is screwed up. The price is
right but the mill looks like:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=44991

Either it was on sale, or they goofed and gave me the next one bigger,
either way, I won't say anything.

They're both dovetail columns, but I'm pretty sure I'll find something
out of square that will have to be taken care of. Not sure how I'll
square it up yet, probably either grind or scrape it square. It looks
more rigid than it really is, the column has one nut on about a 1"
stud to hold it, but all I want it for is small stuff anyhow. Kinda
interesting, on a bench 30" by 5 feet, one could have a pretty good
small machining facility, with the small mill, one of the 7 X 12
lathes and a small drill press and bench grinder. And for less than
$1000 to boot.

THinking about it, it might have been mislabeled right from the
factory, but I'm still not going to cry.

Yep, I can see by the new link that they are dovetailed columns. The first
link, at a glance, was easy to miss. A friend, years ago, bought a little
tabletop CNC mill that was built much like these little guys are. I'm
thinking they're leaps and bounds ahead of the round column machines. If
you got the larger model for the price you said, you'd have been nuts to
turn it down. I think both of us know the difficulty of doing small work
on large machines. The setup you described could make a hobbyist doing
small work quite pleased. I'd be interested in hearing what you have to
go through to get yours up and running properly.

Harold