All good suggestions -- heed the advice about getting a 3-axis DRO as it
makes all the difference. Mitutoyo sells a DRO bundle (I bought mine
through J&L) for 8x30 machines that costs about $900 when it's on sale.
I know that sounds like a lot for a mill-drill, but having to deal with
the tiny dials and backlash costs something too - your time.

Buy a jug of real way oil (Mobil Vactra #2 or equivalent) to lube the
ways and lead screws. Regular oils don't stay in place. If you are
worried about rust, mix up some WD-40 and LPS-3 in a 4:1 ratio, and
spray it on all of the metal surfaces after you clean up or before you
mount the vise. And speaking of vises, don't even think about getting
one of those $99 Chinese boat anchors. Buy a real Kurt vise and you will
thank yourself every time it's used.

Note that the cost of all these suggestions now totals more than you
probably spent on the machine itself, and you haven't even started on
tooling yet. Welcome to the world of machining!

Bill Schwab wrote:
I have a rebranded Rong Fu 31 (I thinkg) that is hopefully getting off
to a good start. I am open to do/don't suggestions on oiling etc.

Dumb question: for practice, I aligned my vice using a dial indicator.
It was fairly smooth, but not something I would want to do every day.
Should I be concerned about leaving the vice in place for long periods?
I would hate to find rust where there was once a nicely machined table

Is there a trick to mounting an indicator on the spindle? I put it in a
chuck. Is there a better way?

Speaking of the table, most of it is quite clean. There are a couple of
small dings that I assume will be best honed or lapped away. What
should I _not_ do?

Before even checking prices, I knew about the tool change, head height,
registration woes of round column machines. I can live with it (670
pounds was quite sufficient for me and my engine hoist), but will
welcome ways to reduce the hassles.

One of the more interesting suggestions was to use a collet chuck. My
problem is that google returned so many hits as to be useless. Can some
kind soul who knows what is going on provide a link to the right gizmo
(or refute the idea)?

An edge/center finder is on its way. For most things, layout lines will
probably be more than sufficient. Otherwise, I am thinking of drilling
a reference hole for "when" I get lost, and then working relative to it.

Reading suggestions are welcome.

Bill