Lathe/milling combos

I bought a Lathe/Mill combo Machine from (House of Tools - out of Business) some 14 years ago. It is the same Machine Grizzly sells as G4015Z. I am certainly no Machinist but I made a Ton of things on this Machine, only drawback no automatic cross feed and the Milling is much restricted. If I would do it over again I would buy the Grizzly Machine G9729.

This Chinese build Machine (My Chinese Instruction Booklet calls it a "Household Machine) is to .0001" accurate if I don't push her to hard. Be prepared to pay as much for the Tooling then you spent on the Machine. My Machine came with a 5" Scroll Chuck which I replaced shortly after with a 100 Dollar 6" - 4Jaw from Grizzly which I had on this Machine now for a good 10 years.

Cheers
 
Really? Lathes and mills are not accurate to .0001, by design. You may be lucky with yours, however, it just isn't a spec. And you can't measure for those dimensions without highly specialized metrology gear, not for an overall project. Heat with cause distortions in that range, from handling.

This guy is a genius, probably literally, he built an air bearing lathe that does .00004", so it is a technology, but not at the cheap end most of us are working at. I strongly recommend his prototyping series to people who are interested.

My first unit was a BB lathe mill, and it was pretty nice. There was a problem with it somehow (got taken care of, BB is good about that), and buying from them was weird as every step up or down the line, and you ended up with completely different operating principles. Plus, while I am as comfortable in metric as imperial, most of the hobby is US/Imperial. The Chinese lathes at the time, might come with knobs that were denominated in inches, but the guts were all metric. Didn't make sense.

So I embraced South Bend in lathes. They were cheap to pick up used, and there was a better supply of parts and accessories and kits, that one could find for most things, at reasonable prices, or free.

Generally, I find the second hand market is better than the new stuff, but it depends on local conditions.
 
Pepperpopper said:
Really? Lathes and mills are not accurate to .0001, by design. You may be lucky with yours, however, it just isn't a spec. And you can't measure for those dimensions without highly specialized metrology gear, not for an overall project. Heat with cause distortions in that range, from handling.

This guy is a genius, probably literally, he built an air bearing lathe that does .00004", so it is a technology, but not at the cheap end most of us are working at. I strongly recommend his prototyping series to people who are interested.

My first unit was a BB lathe mill, and it was pretty nice. There was a problem with it somehow (got taken care of, BB is good about that), and buying from them was weird as every step up or down the line, and you ended up with completely different operating principles. Plus, while I am as comfortable in metric as imperial, most of the hobby is US/Imperial. The Chinese lathes at the time, might come with knobs that were denominated in inches, but the guts were all metric. Didn't make sense.

So I embraced South Bend in lathes. They were cheap to pick up used, and there was a better supply of parts and accessories and kits, that one could find for most things, at reasonable prices, or free.

Generally, I find the second hand market is better than the new stuff, but it depends on local conditions.
Click to expand...
Micrometers to measure down to .0001 are $200 and Jig boring is done all day every day on Swiss and Japanese manufactured mills that are 70+ years old.

Any lathe can be used to repair/improve itself to .0001 if the operator is competent.

Did you mean to post a link?
 
Brassman66 said:
I bought a Lathe/Mill combo Machine from (House of Tools - out of Business) some 14 years ago. It is the same Machine Grizzly sells as G4015Z. I am certainly no Machinist but I made a Ton of things on this Machine, only drawback no automatic cross feed and the Milling is much restricted. If I would do it over again I would buy the Grizzly Machine G9729.

This Chinese build Machine (My Chinese Instruction Booklet calls it a "Household Machine) is to .0001" accurate if I don't push her to hard. Be prepared to pay as much for the Tooling then you spent on the Machine. My Machine came with a 5" Scroll Chuck which I replaced shortly after with a 100 Dollar 6" - 4Jaw from Grizzly which I had on this Machine now for a good 10 years.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Sorry my mistake,
Should have been .001 using my Chinese Caliper

Cheers
 
I have a smithy 1220 ltd.
I am a machinist, have been for thirty years.
My smithy made me a better machinist. Its a good machine, it has limitations. It has given me independence. Its 115v a real bonus.
Do your research, the busybee machines are very cheapy made, a assume they aren't very accurate.

Be well
 
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