On Oct 28, 10:04 pm, Bill Schwab wrote:
Gang,

Another suggestion lead me to take a quick look at Grizzly as a price
check, and the machine below jumped out as unique. I think I know much
of what you will say, but please have a look at:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G9959

and rip it to shreds (or not) as you deem appropriate. The price and
weight are pretty attractive. The x-travel stinks, but that's not what
usually hurts me. The cross travel is excellent. I assume it is
suitable to Al at best???

Among the pluses of my mill-drill is spindle/table capability. I do not
even want to know how high it will go. Every so often, I crank it up a
bit, and it gets pretty ominous looking. The 8x36 I mentioned falls a
little short there, and I have not seen a riser block for it (haven't
looked very hard yet).

Bill

A friend of mine has a very similar mill. It's not bad, but the 8X36
is much better. For instance, the G9959 does not have a an adjustable
ram. You have, however, hit on the biggest weakness of the 8X36, it's
table to spindle distance. Given the limitations of each I would much
rather have the 8X36. In almost all cases where it was a problem I was
able to overcome the 8X36s short spindle to table distance by creative
setups. The 8X36 is also called a baby Bridgeport. It is very, very
similar to a Bridgeport (although it has no head knuckle or power
spindle feed, neither one of which I missed).

I would get either the 8X36 or a full sized Bridgeport clone.