Lathe/milling combos

infideleggwelder

infideleggwelder

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Getting a big chunk of change from my employer at end of the month. Looking for some recommendations on a lathe milling combo or two entry level machines. Disclaimer- i am not a machinist by any stretch. I once filed an almost perfect cube.. which i turned into game die and lost it in my first game of craps. I use my drill press for small milling operations. I am not going to ever use the full potential of these machines, but when i do use them i want accuracy (unlike my drill press) and no pissing around.
Budget- entry level - as i don`t really need the machine/s - just a nice to have for retirement.
Not looking for PA grade machines.
 
I’ve got a Grizzly lathe/mill combo, for what I need it for it’s plenty accurate. I’m not building high tolerance pieces, so I didn’t see the need for a really expensive unit, I got mine off Craigslist 5 years ago with a rolling tool chest full of tooling and a cabinet/stand for under $2000. My mini lathe sh@t the bed and the combo used was close to a similar lathe minus tooling iirc. I’d love a dedicated mill and a separate bigger lathe but I just don’t have the need for them, the combo does what I need it to do. Which is turning bolts, threading, etc etc. I have old motorcycles and you always have to make something to fix a broken part etc etc.
 
Get separate machines.

PA grade machines? Princess Auto?
Every combo machine I have seen or dealt with would have needed a tow truck hoist to drag it up to Princess Auto quality levels.

Each is going to be more than a combo machine, but the tooling costs to do much, are going to be about similar. Look at Busy Bee, King Tools, KMS Tools and their like, for the low end of hobby grade stuff. Buy your tooling on sale or direct out of China from places like Richontools.com. The cheap tooling you can find over here is mostly Chinese, you may as well not pay the mark up!

Where you are is going to make a difference too. Slim pickings, generally, in the parts of the country that have fewer people. More emphasis on industrial pricing, around the dealers in industrialized cities. Etc.

As far as places to shop used, CADC, Alberta Online Auction, Craigslist, kijiji, hell, even look at putting out some WTB posts on grocery store bulletin boards and the like.
Educate yourself as to what is or isn't a suitable machine for your needs. Shop accordingly.
 
Oh yeah. If you gotta choose, get a lathe first. You can do a lot of milling operations on a lathe, with very limited extra tooling, mainly cutters and a vertical slide or milling attachment (two names, same thing).
It's not industrial metal removal rates, but you are not in it to make next months rent either.
 
I echo the suggestion to get separate machines.

I've only ever seen one combo some years back which was based around a 12x36 lathe size. And even it had a number of compromises that would make it both a lesser lathe but mostly a grossly inferior mill.

The others I've seen were all total failures at both functions.

If you were totally stuck for room and were making smaller projects then there's a few combos that might do the job. But if you have enough room to breath in the area then you have room for two far better separate machines.


If you're doing gunsmithing stuff that is anything less than full on barrel work then you can do a heck of a lot with a smaller lathe and mill.
 
I`ve been doing a little research. I like the shop fox M1112 size of lathe, but that may be a little bit more than entry level, and more lathe than i will use.i`m comfortable with that, but out of my budget if buying new. The princess auto machines- the mini ones anyway, are guaranteed to be one size too small for whatever my second project will be. Story of my life. Plan on some gunsmithing, for myself, and otherwise making larger pieces of metal into smaller ones and a lot of curly metal. and So i guess something in between the shop fox and the princess auto stuff.
Was gifted a small machinists chest with a lot of cutters and milling bits a while ago. Nothing really special in the chest
I`m heading back to Alberta this summer, wainwright area to be specific. Easy escape to Saskatchewan if Alberta goes down hill.
Will probably wait till i get out there to purchase unless the perfect deal lands in my lap. Have seen one or two good deals on lathes and milling machines around here, but wasn`t looking at the time. Even saw a shaper for sale once.
Not too worried about enough space, house purchases are based on separate workshop space for both of us and then house aesthetics come second. Passed on a lot of nice houses with single garages over the years, and owned a few crappy houses with beautiful shop spaces. I do move a lot- part of the job. Hoping to grow some moss this time around though.
 
Thanks trevj for the link to Richontools.com
Some comments from a rank amateur:

There was a time I would have agreed with advice to get a lathe first, but my thoughts have changed. For every hour I spend at the lathe, I probably spend four at the mill so, if I were to start from scratch, I would get the mill first. That said, the tooling for the mill will add up much more quickly than tooling for the lathe.

I would not waste money on a milling attachment for a lathe. Been there with a South Bend and the functionality and rigidity stank.

I have no experience with combo machines. However, I learned a long time ago that rigidity is important and increasing the distance between the bed and the cutting surface has an exponentially increasing detrimental effect on rigidity. From what I can see, that distance on combo machines is excessive and I would expect a lack of rigidity to be an insurmountable problem.
 
X2 for separate machines. In any maching operation, the bulk of the time is spent on setup. Combo machines exacerbate that. My other thought is to get the biggest unit you can fit, and possibly afford. You'll be glad you did.
 
Combo machines might be ok for tiny stuff, but for any sort of practical use that I've tried to use them for they suck. My uncle next door has one of the busy bee ones that I've used a couple times, and it's just not solid enough for basically anything I've ever tried to do with it, nor does it have enough power to turn anything bigger than a couple inches diameter. I used it to clean up the edge of a crank pulley once, about 5" diameter. I probably could have gotten better results rigging it up in my drill press and using an angle grinder. He's happy with it though, mostly makes little trinkets out of aluminum with it. I guess if you've never used anything better they seem great, but if you have much experience with proper machine tools you'll be pretty frustrated.
Kristian
 
Rotaxpower said:
Combo machines are VERY limited to what you can do, ask me how I know.......
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Here's the real conundrum of the combo machines.

The more experience you have with machining, and especially with oddball set-ups, the more likely you are to be able to be happy with a combo machine, and the more success you will have.

Sadly, they mostly get marketed to the beginners, and frankly, the beginner has enough problems to deal with, beyond having to add in janky and not very rigid set-ups to deal with.
They generally have very large capacity for turning, because of the way the spindle is mounted so high up the column, but they seldom have low enough speeds available, to actually use that capacity for other than wood work or metal spinning (about the only thing I would buy a Combo for).

Using a lathe as a milling machine, whether with a vertical slide, or as a combo machine, is an exercise in dealing with compromises brought about by the basics of the design of how the lathe moves, vs. how a mill does. There just is not the space to put as much material in the ways (the sliding surfaces) of a lathe, in order to get the amount of support and rigidity as you want, nor the mass that aids so much in damping out vibrations.

On the Mill front. I have had some pretty decent experiences with the round column RF-30/RF-31 type mills. You need to get some experience at dialing in your spindle over a reference point if you need to deal with larger parts, beyond the range of the spindle travel, but for someone that is scribing a line and cutting to it, even that is not really a limitation to worry about. Aside from their capacity to mill, they are a decent heavy duty drill press with a table that moves, and I know at least one industrial supplier that sold a lot of them to business users, for that sole purpose, as a decent heavier duty drill press is hard to find.

Dialing in on a feature, or using a wiggler to edge find, or center over a punch mark in a layout, are basic skills that you will need to learn. They seem to be the 'threading' of the Milling world, as beginners tend to try to do all they can to avoid learning the skills, as they are apparently 'scary' for some reason. Not so much, just skills that you will find that you use all the time and that should take you no time of any significance to use!

I would expect the used market around Wainwright to be pretty slim, as it's got it's population of farmers that are willing to buy and keep tools that they can use. There are several Machine Tool Dealers in Calgary that carry a stock of used machines, though they are pretty sharp on pricing most of the time. And there are a lot of folks that thought they needed one or have grown too old for their homes and are moving to smaller residential arrangements that are clearing out their stuff, so it pays to keep word out and watch the usual suspects as sources for contacts. Not sure if there is a Live Steam Club near there, but that is another group liable to be able to provide some leads, either someone knows of a machine available, or someone is upgrading, so they may be worth seeking out.
 
Canadian Hobby Metal Workers & Machinists
https: //canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/
There seem to be quite a few members in AB and members frequently post leads on available equipment as they become aware of it.
 
B_noser said:
Canadian Hobby Metal Workers & Machinists
https: //canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/
There seem to be quite a few members in AB and members frequently post leads on available equipment as they become aware of it.
Click to expand...

Their Site. Very helpful to anyone who has a question. I'm a member. :redface:

https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/forums/machine-talks-mills-lathes-shapers-etc.12/

Grizz
 
B noser is right. I use my mill probably six times as much as lathe .If I could only have one it would be the mill. Should have had it 40 years ago. Mine is a top end grizzly mill/drill. I do see that a straight mill could hog metal faster though.
 
trevj said:
Here's the real conundrum of the combo machines.

The more experience you have with machining, and especially with oddball set-ups, the more likely you are to be able to be happy with a combo machine, and the more success you will have.

Sadly, they mostly get marketed to the beginners, and frankly, the beginner has enough problems to deal with, beyond having to add in janky and not very rigid set-ups to deal with.
They generally have very large capacity for turning, because of the way the spindle is mounted so high up the column, but they seldom have low enough speeds available, to actually use that capacity for other than wood work or metal spinning (about the only thing I would buy a Combo for).

Using a lathe as a milling machine, whether with a vertical slide, or as a combo machine, is an exercise in dealing with compromises brought about by the basics of the design of how the lathe moves, vs. how a mill does. There just is not the space to put as much material in the ways (the sliding surfaces) of a lathe, in order to get the amount of support and rigidity as you want, nor the mass that aids so much in damping out vibrations.

On the Mill front. I have had some pretty decent experiences with the round column RF-30/RF-31 type mills. You need to get some experience at dialing in your spindle over a reference point if you need to deal with larger parts, beyond the range of the spindle travel, but for someone that is scribing a line and cutting to it, even that is not really a limitation to worry about. Aside from their capacity to mill, they are a decent heavy duty drill press with a table that moves, and I know at least one industrial supplier that sold a lot of them to business users, for that sole purpose, as a decent heavier duty drill press is hard to find.

Dialing in on a feature, or using a wiggler to edge find, or center over a punch mark in a layout, are basic skills that you will need to learn. They seem to be the 'threading' of the Milling world, as beginners tend to try to do all they can to avoid learning the skills, as they are apparently 'scary' for some reason. Not so much, just skills that you will find that you use all the time and that should take you no time of any significance to use!

I would expect the used market around Wainwright to be pretty slim, as it's got it's population of farmers that are willing to buy and keep tools that they can use. There are several Machine Tool Dealers in Calgary that carry a stock of used machines, though they are pretty sharp on pricing most of the time. And there are a lot of folks that thought they needed one or have grown too old for their homes and are moving to smaller residential arrangements that are clearing out their stuff, so it pays to keep word out and watch the usual suspects as sources for contacts. Not sure if there is a Live Steam Club near there, but that is another group liable to be able to provide some leads, either someone knows of a machine available, or someone is upgrading, so they may be worth seeking out.
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While I agree with most of what you said, I wouldn't go to the extent of saying that an experienced machinist could get by with one. In my comment the reason why I say they are limited to what you can do with them I was talking more on the side that the mill is about the most useless thing ever. Once you put in a drill chuck, and any drill larger then 1/2" your very limited to the thickness of material you want to drill. You cant just move the quill up, you also cant move the knee down to gain space. Sure you can get stub drills, but then it limits the depth you can drill. While the lathe part is functional and will most definitely get you by for most parts.
 
Rotaxpower said:
While I agree with most of what you said, I wouldn't go to the extent of saying that an experienced machinist could get by with one. In my comment the reason why I say they are limited to what you can do with them I was talking more on the side that the mill is about the most useless thing ever. Once you put in a drill chuck, and any drill larger then 1/2" your very limited to the thickness of material you want to drill. You cant just move the quill up, you also cant move the knee down to gain space. Sure you can get stub drills, but then it limits the depth you can drill. While the lathe part is functional and will most definitely get you by for most parts.
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Oh, I did NOT say an experienced machinist could get by with one, just that they are more likely to be able to be happy with one than a beginner would.

The experience of witnessing cause and effect time and again, is more like to give an experienced guy a chance to understand what is happening, where a beginner will not have a clue really.

Sort of like the difference between following a recipe for bread, and having been shown how bread is made by someone who knows. The recipe is the same, the results can be wildly different.

In any case, I think there is a place for the 3-in-1 machines, but mostly it to shave with, ie: make razor blades from the scrap! :)

And yeah, spindle height being more or less fixed, is yet another of the shortcomings. It takes but a few seconds to hack off a drill bit, and a few more to grind a decent point on the stub, if a fella has not completely avoided tool grinding practice, though. Again, not the end of the world, but an experienced guy is more like to find ways past the limitations that seem to be built in.

I would recommend to ANYONE to not bother with a 3-in1. It's not that there are not ways around, it's just that the ways are sometimes long and winding paths.... :)

Like I said, you pretty much need to have a broad base of experience, in order to get decent use out of a combo machine. But they are mostly sold to be attractive to those without any experience. I honestly think they are a disservice to folks trying to learn, as those folks never get to experience how well things can go.
 
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