Mini mill wanted

S

steelerfan88

Well-Known Member
I am contemplating getting a mini mill, I have no intentions of buying ANYTHING from HB...just to be clear...LOL ! Let me hear your recommendations for the best mill I can get for under $1K. I will be using it mainly for custom wood/G10/micarta handle/scale sculpting/shaping and some light steel work....nothing over 1/4" thickness steel. I like tools that are well built and solid with the least amount of bells & whistles.....I like things simple.....like me :biggrin:
 
Grizzly sells some good quality, low priced machines. They have excellent customer service as well. My advice would be to not buy something too small, you will soon learn you can do a lot with a mill.
 
Yeah Grizzly has some decent ones that work just fine for knifemakers.

Keep this in mind, it is a hard and fast rule......the tooling you will need for the mill will cost you a hefty percentage of what you pay for just the mill.

It's the tooling that really adds up.
 
I have one of the common mini-mills. It was all I could afford at the time and all I had room for. It works for small, occasional jobs. If I had to do it over again, I would go bigger for sure. The drive gears are plastic and will break eventually. Buy an extra set. The backlash is huge so you have to learn to work with that. Don't expect better than a thou tolerance. The head moves all over the place under load, even locked down.

I can mill g10, cut slots in Ti for a liner lock and mill out stainless. A pass in metal is maybe .002". A pass in g10 might be .005". It's slow.
I use an R8 collet for milling and a hand chuck for simple stuff. It makes a decent drill press once you get it square.

The minute I get room for a decent knee mill, or at least a heavy mill/drill I'm getting it. Hopefully with DRO.
 
I just pulled the trigger on little machine shops high torque solid column mini mill.In my opinion the best small mill out there.I'm waiting for it to be delivered to Alaska.
 
AkWildman said:
I just pulled the trigger on little machine shops high torque solid column mini mill.In my opinion the best small mill out there.I'm waiting for it to be delivered to Alaska.
Click to expand...

I've done a lot of research about these, and I agree. When the timing and cash flow is right, LMS gets my money too.
 
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