Need some advice, here...

I occasionally wish I had a small mill, but can't really afford to go
out and buy one. I was going to modify my 7x14 mini-lathe to accept a
small vertically mounted vise where the tool holder normally goes, in
order to use it for the odd milling operation.

Then, a local company started selling these:

http://www.wddm-machine.com/pro_show.asp?ID=51

That is, the one on the left, the WDM ZX7016. A better pictu

http://www.jula.no/bore-fresemaskin-125693

Click the magnifying glass in that picture for a large version.

It costs about a third of what importers charge for a typical mini-mill
over here. Now, I know it's just a sturdy vertical drill with an X/Y
table, but it does feel really solid and stable (it weighs 165 lbs
without the stand shown in the picture), and even if I don't lock the Z
axis, I can't detect any slop whatsoever in the quill, even when cranked
all the way down.

I'm sorely tempted. However, I notice a couple of details that I'm
unsure of. The spindle taper is MT2, whereas it seems most tooling
offered out there is R8. The importer does supply a nice looking collet
chuck in MT2, though. Possibly worse: I'm wondering if I'm going to be
cursing that table every time I use it, because it lacks a central T
slot...? It seems to me every picture I see of anything at all mounted
on a coordinate table uses the center slot, which someone must have
plain forgotten to draw when the plans for this mill were made.

-tih
--
There is no such thing as failure. Only giving up too soon. --Jonas Salk