Hi,

I am looking at adding a milling machine to my home shop. I can
either buy a RF45 (Taiwanese Rong Fu, not a clone) or for
slightly more a Chinese Knee mill with coolant and power feed. Both
will probably do what I need. Can anyone give me a push in one of
these directions? I have basically restricted my search to a mill with
a square column/dovetails.

I know it would be better to get a used Bridgeport, or some other
American Iron but where I am (Western Canada), these machines (well
used) are typically 5000 USD+ used, which is more than I want to
spend.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

Chris

On Sep 23, 3:17 pm, wrote:
Hi,

I am looking at adding a milling machine to my home shop. I can
either buy a RF45 (Taiwanese Rong Fu, not a clone) or for
slightly more a Chinese Knee mill with coolant and power feed. Both
will probably do what I need. Can anyone give me a push in one of
these directions? I have basically restricted my search to a mill with
a square column/dovetails.

I know it would be better to get a used Bridgeport, or some other
American Iron but where I am (Western Canada), these machines (well
used) are typically 5000 USD+ used, which is more than I want to
spend.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

Chris

Chris truck freight on a machine out of the US might be way more
affordable than you think.

I'm in a similar situation in eastern ontario machine availability is
almost non-existent unless i go to western ontario or new york

appropriate NON BRIDGEPORT machines (INDEX EXCELLO CINCY) and similar
machines can be had reasonably easy

800km of LTL shipping on a machine of about 1.5 tons was about $1K and
100 for brokerage

IN my case i found a gap that let me pick it up for less than 1000 in
rental and mileage.

I wound up with a full sized Index model 45 for less than a clausing
8520 or 8530 goes for.

the trick is to avoid paying the "bridgeport tax" I will not call
bridgeports bad machines but they have a name premium associated with
them at the moment that they dont necessarily deserve and ythat
premium and attention actually droves DOWN the price of otherwise
excellent non bridgeport machines

Thought i'd mention the other options

Brent
Ottawa Canada

wrote:
Hi,

I am looking at adding a milling machine to my home shop. I can
either buy a RF45 (Taiwanese Rong Fu, not a clone) or for
slightly more a Chinese Knee mill with coolant and power feed. Both
will probably do what I need. Can anyone give me a push in one of
these directions? I have basically restricted my search to a mill with
a square column/dovetails.

I know it would be better to get a used Bridgeport, or some other
American Iron but where I am (Western Canada), these machines (well
used) are typically 5000 USD+ used, which is more than I want to
spend.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

Chris


Where are you?

The few dealers I have run dealt with, had prices that could be best
described as "optimistic". To the extent that I figured I could get two
up from the states and resell one to recoup at least the costs of
trucking both.

Look at Busy Bee's website. China, not Taiwan, though.

They have pretty good rates on their shipping. Really good. Depending
where you are, it may be far cheaper than driving there.

Look at the A1-S clones. B048, or CT054

If you are in BC, you could do to consider a two day trip down to
Washington state and buy a machine through Grizzly.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

I was in your shoes a couple of years ago and ended up going for a used
Clausing 8520, looked long and hard at the RF45 and other China iron and
just couldn't do it...

I could have run the machine as is but decided to restore it, that gave me a
real appreciation for "older" american iron:

http://gallery.intlwaters.com/thumbnails.php?album=323


wrote in message
ps.com...
Hi,

I am looking at adding a milling machine to my home shop. I can
either buy a RF45 (Taiwanese Rong Fu, not a clone) or for
slightly more a Chinese Knee mill with coolant and power feed. Both
will probably do what I need. Can anyone give me a push in one of
these directions? I have basically restricted my search to a mill with
a square column/dovetails.

I know it would be better to get a used Bridgeport, or some other
American Iron but where I am (Western Canada), these machines (well
used) are typically 5000 USD+ used, which is more than I want to
spend.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

Chris

Terry, that's a great looking restoration job, and the intlwaters site photo
layout is very good too

WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


"Terry Keeley" tkee(no wrote in message
...
I was in your shoes a couple of years ago and ended up going for a used
Clausing 8520, looked long and hard at the RF45 and other China iron and
just couldn't do it...

I could have run the machine as is but decided to restore it, that gave me
a real appreciation for "older" american iron:

http://gallery.intlwaters.com/thumbnails.php?album=323




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Thanks!

Was a labour of love


"Wild_Bill" wrote in message
.. .
Terry, that's a great looking restoration job, and the intlwaters site
photo layout is very good too

WB
.........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


"Terry Keeley" tkee(no wrote in message
...
I was in your shoes a couple of years ago and ended up going for a used
Clausing 8520, looked long and hard at the RF45 and other China iron and
just couldn't do it...

I could have run the machine as is but decided to restore it, that gave
me a real appreciation for "older" american iron:

http://gallery.intlwaters.com/thumbnails.php?album=323




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Sep 23, 1:17 pm, wrote:
Hi,

I am looking at adding a milling machine to my home shop. I can
either buy a RF45 (Taiwanese Rong Fu, not a clone) or for
slightly more a Chinese Knee mill with coolant and power feed. Both
will probably do what I need. Can anyone give me a push in one of
these directions? I have basically restricted my search to a mill with
a square column/dovetails.

I know it would be better to get a used Bridgeport, or some other
American Iron but where I am (Western Canada), these machines (well
used) are typically 5000 USD+ used, which is more than I want to
spend.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

Chris

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Chris