Larger machine tool discussions...

[J57ltr]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

Your exactly right on that - we often get caught up in wha tis the best versus what will do the job.

+1. At my job over the years I have been able to talk my boss into buying a lot of equipment so that we could start building a lot of the componets we usually have made by other vendors in house because we were not getting the quality we needed. That and having parts made at weld shops, sheet metal shops and machine shops caused us a lot of oops moments. That's when I said we needed a fixit machine so we bought this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=42827

While it's not a high quality unit we have had this one for almost 5 years and other than a leak around the seal of the spindle its been a trooper. Over time as needed I got a Wilton 1310 Vise, Tbolt and hold down set with step blocks, parallels, dial indicator and a host of end mills. I bought a coolant pump at wholesale tool for $65 and use the Cool Mist coolant. That stuff works fine other than alge grows in the tank after a few days of not being used wish I knew how to fix that. Funny thing is I use the same thing in our bandsaw and it never does that. I do most of the prototyping at my job so I use this machine a lot and the finish is just fine as long as you don't need anything closer than .001".

When we decided to start doing our welding in house I searched around and got this one:

http://www.millerwelds.com/products/tig/syncrowave_200/

One of the things you have to worry about when picking a welder is how much can your wiring handle. I noticed that some of the guys had 300 amp welders listed but they need a 61 amp service at 230V which unless you have a 200a service will pretty much suck the breakers into the insulation at full tilt. We originally bought a 230V unit and after looking at the specs it needed 54 amps at 230V. I had to make a 75' run to where the welder was going to be so I needed #6 wire X 3 (2 hots and a ground off of 230V 3ph). At the time copper was through the roof and you have to buy a minimum of 500'. We ended up returning the 230V unit and getting a 460V unit. That way I only needed 27A and 10ga wire.

We do about 80% SST most everything is at least 304 and some 316. SST is weird to weld it moves around so much. The frames we were getting from our vendors were more than 3/8" out and football shaped. When we started making them we were able to keep them under 1/16". SST is my favorite, since it's clean and leaves all the pretty gold n purpley beads. We use only Argon on this machine even when we do mild steel. I use Silicon Bronze if it's got to be pretty when welding mild steel.

For welding mild steel frames and sheetmetal drive gaurds, and being portable I got a Hobart Handler 140:

http://www.hobartwelders.com/product...ed/handler140/

It's about the biggest 110 powered Mig you can get (Lincoln and Miller have comparable units as well, Hobart and Miller are in cahoots). One thing I wish it had is a variable amp setting (more fine than just 4 steps). It works great on up to 1/4" in a single pass but it pops a 20 amp breaker after about 30 seconds of cont. welding on the highest setting. I have found that if I plug it in to the Miller it works fine .

I have been asking for a plasma for a while maybe next year.


Jeff

[JThiessen]

[/QUOTE]=J57ltr;339772 That stuff works fine other than alge grows in the tank after a few days of not being used wish I knew how to fix that. Funny thing is I use the same thing in our bandsaw and it never does that. [/QUOTE]

Dang it, I've run across that issue before. Let me do some checking and see if I can find an answer for you.

Linc, are you looking at putting something in your garage, or you body shop? He made a good point with the electrical service requirements - a big machine is going to be wired in, as opposed to the "portable" equipment.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

Linc, are you looking at putting something in your garage, or you body shop? He made a good point with the electrical service requirements - a big machine is going to be wired in, as opposed to the "portable" equipment.

I have 240 3 phase wired to the main building, so that should not be an issue. The equipment would be on the back wall, not 5 feet from the box.

[JThiessen]

Redshift - that there was definitley engineers porn.....love it! I liked how they were doing the fan blades - must have been part of a prototype process.

Linc - I talked with one of my mechanics at work this morning. He has been building his own submarine over the last 5 years, and he bought one of those Grizzly combo units. He said it works good as a lathe, but for the mill portion, he has issues keeping the dovetails true - and that is what I was thinking the difference will be between cheaper machines and some a little higher end. He said if he could do it over again, he wouldn't have bought this one. He didn't know which he would have bought, but he said he'd of spent more money. He did say that the place he bought it at had both grizzly and jet, and he thought at the time the Grizzly seemed to be built better. Now he's not so sure. In the store, neither one seemed like the dove tails had any slop - but they probably had so much grease packed into them that they felt solid.

[redshift]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

Redshift - that there was definitley engineers porn.....love it! I liked how they were doing the fan blades - must have been part of a prototype process.

Linc - I talked with one of my mechanics at work this morning. He has been building his own submarine over the last 5 years, and he bought one of those Grizzly combo units. He said it works good as a lathe, but for the mill portion, he has issues keeping the dovetails true - and that is what I was thinking the difference will be between cheaper machines and some a little higher end. He said if he could do it over again, he wouldn't have bought this one. He didn't know which he would have bought, but he said he'd of spent more money. He did say that the place he bought it at had both grizzly and jet, and he thought at the time the Grizzly seemed to be built better. Now he's not so sure. In the store, neither one seemed like the dove tails had any slop - but they probably had so much grease packed into them that they felt solid.

So uh, just your average tinkerer then..

The problem is there are really only Grizzly or HF for choices with the combo machines. There are a few disadvantages with combos, but are outweighed by the advantages IMO.

One example would be that your lathe chuck doubles as an indexer. Another is the ability to do spin-milling. For cutting large square recesses on shafts, that can be priceless. I have been annoyed with some projects in the past, having to go between the lathe and the mill. Because you need to re-find your reference point every time...

I think unless you are doing military-spec work, any of the HF or Grizzly machines would do quite well. The size of the machine needs to be determined by whatever the individual deems sufficient.

As for the venerable Bridgeport, I have used good ones and really sloppy ones. That's almost entirely a matter of how they were maintained, but no consolation when you need to hold +- .001 on a machine with 5X or more that amount of slop.

That illustrates my philosophy I guess. Do more, with less!