Googling Pays

I think I have finally found the answer to the drill press/milling machine conundrum: the Powermatic (Burke) Millrite. This is a full-blown milling machine that is small enough to put in a garage, yet big enough to be hard to outgrow. If you have more room than you need for a drill press, but not enough for a Bridgeport, this is your machine. And another bonus: because these machines were not generally used for production work, they tend to have relatively few hours on them.

The mill/drills I was looking at have a lot to recommend them, but as good as they are, they are Chiwanese hobby machines, and they are limited. And they cost as much or more than a used Millrite. And they will not hold their value the way a used American mill will. Millrites have a relatively short quill travel, which is bad, but I guess you can’t have everything.

As luck would have it, a Millrite is available here in Miami. But they are not selling it cheap. It would cost as much as a new mill/drill. I’ve read about people buying them for $400, but I don’t know what the going rate is. Ebay indicates about two grand.

I got a quote on the machine. Now I have to sit here and talk myself out of going to look at it. As if I would know what to look for when checking out an old mill.

You Know the Drill

I resent people saying I have a tool addiction. I can stop any time I want. But first I have to find out which expensive tools I need in order to do that.

I continued Googling milling machines last night. I blame reader Jdunmyer. He posted a comment linking to some photos of beautiful machinery a guy made on a Harbor Freight combination machine. Here’s the link. Look, and weep.

A combination machine performs functions that would ordinarily require several machines. People buy them to save money, and because they take up less room. These machines are often criticized because they don’t do everything well. But this guy’s work seems to demonstrate that the man running the machine is a bigger factor.

Anyway, I looked at that stuff and got all excited. He made little engines, mainly. I can’t really see myself making those. But the quality of his work and the relative cheapness of the machine he used made me realize you can do a lot with small machinery that doesn’t break the bank. You can do more than enough to make the expense and effort worth it.

I don’t think I’d buy one of these things. The man who made those little machines says the milling part is very, very cramped. That’s bad. But you can get other machines that save space and money, without losing so much functionality.

One type of machine that interests me is the mill/drill. This is a milling machine that also functions as a drill press. They make them big enough to do respectable milling jobs, and they’re excellent drills with deep strokes and a wide range of speeds. Some people buy them and use them for both metalworking and woodworking. Obviously, that appeals to me. A good drill press–good enough so I’ll never have to replace it–will run me at least nine hundred dollars. A mill/drill that will do nearly everything the drill press will, plus much more, will cost twice that much. And it will take up roughly the same amount of space as the drill press.

The obvious difference is that the mill has a short column, so there is a limit to the distance you can put between the work and the spindle. I think. Maybe you can spin the head around and drill on the other side, with only the floor below the spindle. I don’t know. If you did that, you’d have to come up with some kind of rigid substitute for a drill press table.

Another concern: to do woodworking on a drill press, you need a suitable table. How do you manage that on a milling machine? And if you do manage to attach it, how do you swivel it and rotate it in the small space between the drill spindle and the bed?

Still, neat idea. I have read that you can do a fair amount of metal turning on these things, so presumably, a mill/drill would–to some degree–be a full-blown combination machine.

Here’s a link to a guy who uses a mill/drill primarily for woodworking. Looks like he has no real problems. He has a pretty expensive machine; it doesn’t have a round column. Machines with round columns are cheaper. Grizzly makes a similar machine (G519) for about half of that price. Whoops…the Grizzly is 3-phase. And it looks like they came out with a single-phase version. People are 3-phase is better, because you can put a $200 VFD on it, and it has a tapping function, which somehow relies on the ability to reverse the motor. Refresh my memory…will a VFD reduce the power of the machine?

Anyway, it’s all very interesting. And I am not addicted to tools.

I hope my miter gauges arrive today.

Wabeco?

I am sitting here listening to CLE and resisting the urge to suck on a pistol with my head in the oven and chewing cyanide. Hopefully I will have the strength to get this done today.

While I listen, I can’t keep myself from Googling machine tools.

People keep telling me small machines are stupid, and I suppose that is true, for a person who has space. Space will eventually be a problem for me. A real milling machine takes up something like 4′ by 6′ of floor space, and you have to pay someone to bring it to you, because it will weigh a ton or so. And a mill isn’t a lathe. So even after you stuff your garage with a mill, you have to look for a lathe which takes up nearly as much room.

Cost is another issue. I keep reading about “cheap” used full-size machines, but it appears that “cheap” means two grand for a mill and fifteen hundred for a lathe. Before tooling. Ouch.

I have also read that combination machines are bad news, because they don’t do anything well.

Nonetheless, my interest has been captured by a small combination machine. Some guy is selling a Wabeco 7.5″ by 16″ lathe with a milling attachment. Wabeco is supposed to be just about the best small machine tool manufacturer in the universe. They’re Germans, so they’re insane about quality. Supposedly their machines are more precise than the ones made by Sherline and Taig, and they’re somewhat bigger and more versatile. And you can put one on a card table.

Okay, a really sturdy card table. Made by Germans. Or, of course, a Workmate. The universal machining platform for all purposes.

This thing retails for…wow…about seven grand. Dude wants fifteen hundred. Hard to see myself losing money on that buy, unless he has replaced the inner workings with oatmeal.

Might be fun. I don’t see myself living in Miami forever; sooner or later I’ll have a workshop where I can park a mill, a lathe, and an Abrams tank if I want. But while I’m here, maybe I could learn a little machining on an item like this, without ruining the garage.

More

The more I think about it, the more I think this is a good idea. I’ve read that many people like to have small machine tools in addition to their big ones, for little jobs. So presumably, if I outgrow this, it will still be a good thing to have around.

Machine Tools

While Marv and I enjoy his “out” time, I am reading about machine tools.

They’re very confusing. I have figured out a couple of things, though, analogizing from woodworking. I think a milling machine is pretty much like a router for metal, only mounted in a really nice fixture that does great stuff with it. And a lathe…is a lathe.

It’s very tough, figuring out what size machine would be useful for me. Jet makes something called a JMD15, and it only weighs 400 pounds, and it appears to take up about as much room as a drill press. A thing like that, I could conceivably accommodate. But what can it do? Is it worth the aggravation?

Many years ago, I used Vise Grips to break stone crab claws, and they were wonderful, but I had to adjust them over and over, because crab claws are not uniform. I thought it might be fun to make pliers just for the purpose of breaking claws. I drew up a design and bought a piece of tool steel and tried to make them, using a drill press. You can imagine how well that worked out. Then I paid a local machinist to make the pliers. They might have worked, had he used a better grade of steel. Will a JMD15 make an item like that?

What if I want a steel fence for my table saw, so I can use magnetic jigs to hold work down? How big a mill would that take? Say I want a piece of steel 48″ long, with T-tracks in it. Can I do that? Can I make something as big as a typical shop vise? Can I make myself a new drill press table from cast iron?

I have no idea. I guess there is no such thing as bulk cast iron, ready to be milled. I suppose they only cast it in shapes that are already dedicated to some purpose.

I have to make a mobile base for the bandsaw. I keep reading depressing things about HTC bases. The one I got for the table saw is great, but I read that adjustable bases flex too much for tall tools. I could buy a welded base, but it would surely cost $200, and that’s insane.

I should be able to make a frame from 1 1/2″ angle iron and then fabricate some kind of attachments for casters. The whole thing might run me $85, even assuming I use overpriced Home Depot metal. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to drill the necessary 3/8″ holes in the base with my hand drills. When you don’t have the right tool, sometimes the answer is the wrong tool and incredible patience.

I apparently caused myself some problems by buying a 19″ saw. I figured lots of people had them, but it looks like a good number of the parts and accessories out there are only available for smaller saws. Maybe that means only hobbyists are dumb enough to buy trinkets and doodads; I’m not sure. I can’t buy zero-clearance inserts, except for the ones the manufacturer sells, so I suppose I should learn to make them from plastic. I guess I could resaw it to the right thickness on the table saw, cut circles with a fly cutter or maybe even a hole saw, and add hex screws to keep the inserts level.

I’m definitely making progress, though. I have finally reached the point where I can go in the garage and just MAKE things.

I Love my Table Saw

I finished my planing sled. You may now grovel before me and explain that you are not worthy:

I love that table saw. Every time I think I need to go use a different saw, I find myself reaching for scrap and clamps, and before you know it, I have a jig that lets me use the table saw. I had to redo all those supports (the long wooden pieces across the table) because I screwed up the dadoes, and I did everything on the table saw.

Hope the sled works.

Most Intimidating Tool of All

According to Mish, Leah Friedman i snow responding to pain. I assume that means her caregivers are poking her or something to see how she is. Her responses are considered encouraging, but she is not awake yet. So prayer is still needed.

Reader JeffW is trying to get himself banned from my comments by pushing me to get Sherline mill. The thing that saved me from getting a mill last time was the expense. That, and the fear that I would never learn how to use it.

Actually, here is the whole complex of neuroses. 1. I didn’t want to spend the money, especially since small mills aren’t much cheaper than used big mills. 2. People told me small mills were useless, because they could only make tiny objects. 3. Big mills take up as much room as bumper pool tables. 4. I was afraid I’d never learn how to use a mill.

Seriously, though, how hard is it? I thought woodworking tools would be hard to use, but they’re not. Most of the skill is in setting them up for various procedures. Once you get your jig or fence or whatever set up correctly, things work pretty smoothly. Are machine tools the same way, or do you have to go be an apprentice on a swamp planet for 25 years?

Bought

I decided to buy the Shop Fox bandsaw I was talking about. I am satisfied with the deal. I am sure I could have gotten the seller to take less, but I was pretty sure his business was in trouble, and I didn’t want to be a complete bastard. It turned out I was right. When I got there, he had a bunch of other stuff he was trying to sell, including a gorgeous Powermatic 66. I tried to hook him up with the crew at Sawmill Creek. It’s really disturbing, hearing how businesses like his are tanking. In a country where people live on credit and count on steady income (and where they don’t save and invest), times like these are very, very hard on a lot of people. I pray for better times, but the signs point toward something else.

In case any of you need the information, it is possible to put a Shop Fox 19″ bandsaw in a Ford Explorer. We took the table off, and in it went. Four guys loaded it. One person can hold up the heavy end, although I don’t recommend it.

Sadly, one person unloaded it. And as Dean Vernon Wormer said, that foot is me. I slid it out until the base was on the grass, and then I tilted it upright. I managed to get my handtruck under it, and the rest is history. Which is what I nearly was at several points during the move. A cop who was driving by saw me floundering (second Animal House reference in one post) in the garage, and hollered to see if I needed help, but by then all I really needed to do was set the saw down, so I told him I was okay.

Here’s the crappy phone photo:

I would guess it weighs about 315 without the table and fence (manual says 367 total), so it’s a scary but not terrifying load to move.

I think this was the right buy. The other saw was much cooler and cheaper, but it won’t do what this one will do. I have read that this saw won’t take really thin blades, but it is my understanding that you can fix that by getting some aftermarket parts.

It’s still wired for 220, but it has a stupid plug that will have to be replaced. I may add one or two more 220 sockets just so I won’t have to run around switching plugs when I work. I suppose I should leave it fixed for 220, since it draws 20 amps and is likely to blow my breaker. If I put this on my big 220 circuit, I could actually run the bandsaw and table saw at the same time. Not that there would be any point.

I finally feel like I have some tools. When the drill press arrives, my life will be bearable. It’s hard to think of anything really vital and big that I’ll need after that. AND DON’T HELP ME THINK OF ANYTHING. Enablers.

This should be pretty sweet. Band saws do lots of stuff other saws can’t do, and there are things other saws can do, which bandsaws do easier.

I decided to go with the single-word spelling, “bandsaw.” Google shows it’s the most popular spelling, and it’s easier to type.

I’ll need some blades. I think the one that came with it is 3/4″, and I can’t even guess at the teeth. I believe I want something small, like 1/4″, so I won’t be limited as much when it comes to turning corners. I also need a miter gauge. Dang it. I also need a good one for the table saw.

There was a very nice workbench down there, just sitting by the road. I wish I needed one. I’ll bet this is a good area to forage for scrap.

I think I’ll go strip down and see if I ruptured anything.

Craigslist is Unforgiving

Things are not looking good, RE the Craigslist Rockwell band saw. I called the seller because he had not gotten back to me, and he said some sleazy character was on his way to look at the saw. If this thing is in good shape, only an idiot would refuse to pay $165 for it.

This is what I get for being polite. I probably called the owner earlier, but he forgot to call me back.

Sounds like a nice old guy. His name is Charlie, he’s an EE, and he has a pacemaker. These are among the biographical details I learned while chatting with him.

The guy with the Shop Fox is down to $850, which is actually not a bad price for a $1250 saw. Not great, but acceptable. I could get most of it back on resale.

Charlie said he would call me if the nefarious slimeweed who butted in front of me doesn’t take the saw.

My Cheapness Gene is Screaming Audibly

Okay, tool people, I have a new one for you.

Some guy just put a 14″ Rockwell 28-200 band saw on Craigslist for $165. I have read up on it, and it is supposedly a very good saw, and you can put a riser on it to resaw big stuff. He says it cuts metal, but I have no idea what he means. This is a wood saw; apparently you can put a transmission and different motor in it to cut metal, but I haven’t called this guy to find out if he has done that.

I feel pretty sure I can get the 19″ Shop Fox I mentioned for $800. It seems likely that the guy who is selling it is having some problems. He is about to move, and he complains that business is too slow to support the big tools he owns. But money is money; $165 is certainly better than $800, and I can almost certainly get my cash back out of the Rockwell, whereas I would probably lose a couple hundred if I had to unload the Shop Fox.

What would you do?

Versatility is Now Relatively Cheap

I am just starting to understand how wonderful a variable frequency drive (VFD) is.

While I was reading up on band saws, I noticed that Grizzly made a fairly inexpensive saw that cut both wood and metal. Naturally, I had to check into it. It turns out they take plain old wood band saws and add 3-phase motors and VFDs to them. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.

This is interesting, because while I was shopping around, it occurred to me that I might be underbuying by getting a saw that wouldn’t cut metal. I have plenty of metal-cutting technology, but it seems to me that there are some things a bandsaw could do that other types of tools can’t. Imagine cutting a lap joint into a bar of metal. I have no idea why you would want to do this, but you might. You’d need a bandsaw or a milling machine.

It seems to me that a metal-cutting bandsaw could function as a crude mill for some operations. That would be a nice capability to have.

It occurs to me that if I get a big ol’ wood band saw, the worst-case scenario for metal is that I might have to find a used motor and VFD later. That would sure beat forking out for a new saw and selling the old one.

Isn’t technology interesting? And I wonder if VFDs will drive the price of used metal-cutting saws down, too.

As for my earlier idea, about buying a bench drill press and adding a column, the wisdom of the approach seems to depend on the model. For a Delta, it’s cheap. For a Powermatic, a new column can cost something like a thousand dollars. Why? Search me. Maybe they’re made of gold.

My Brilliant New Plan

Here’s an interesting question.

I have noticed that used bench drill presses sell much cheaper than floor models. The same drill press, I mean, except the column is half as tall. But replacement columns are cheap. You can get one for between fifty and a hundred bucks.

SO…why not buy a bench drill press, save money on the buy and shipping, and then slap a new column on it?

I found an old Delta bench press online cheap, with a 1 HP motor. And NOBODY seems to want it.

Mere Mortals are Undeserving

My sister’s birthday is this week, and tonight my father and I planned to take her out to eat. Problem: my dad had a couple of skin cancers burned off, and he does not consider himself presentable while they’re healing.

SO…

Champagne chicken and strawberry cheesecake. I just bought the stuff. Florida berries are in season, so they’re good and they’re cheap.

Don’t you wish it was your birthday? We’ll be hogging down chicken and fettuccine and Champagne, with garlic bread made from a sourdough baguette. Then comes the cheesecake. Too much.

In other news, I have gotten some drill press info. I located a Buffalo #18 press, which at this point is my absolute favorite kind. It looks very nice, and it has the lamp, which usually gets lost. It’s 3-phase, which means I have to spring for a VFD, but I planned to do that anyway, so I could bypass the belts and get a good low speed.

Tool people: what do you think is a fair price for one of these things? Shipping will run me a little over $300. If I could get it here for $550, I wouldn’t feel violated. On the other hand, if it was local, I would hope to do considerably better.

Tools are Everywhere

I learned something interesting this week.

A while back, I located a used machinery dealer who had a bunch of drill presses on hand. He got them from the public schools. Someone asked me which dealer I was talking about. The name is A.M. Metalmaq.

They wanted $850 for the cheapest press. This is a stupid buy. I saw a brand new one for something like $1250. A used one should not cost more than half of that.

I rooted around on the web, and I found out that there are a lot of used machines out there, at auction. There are a number of government and government-connected sites that sell these things. You can get a nice Powermatic 1150 for maybe $250. You have to find someone to skid it and ship it, but that costs less than $400, so in the end, it’s worth the time and aggravation. And then there is IRSauctions.com.

I also learned that Miami-Dade County (I cannot believe we put “Miami” in the name to help South Americans realize where we were) has a store where it unloads surplus items. This may well be where the drill presses I found came from. I plan to run up there and see what they have. I’m sure every Cuban in Miami has been there already; they love a bargain, and ten minutes after one Cuban finds something good, the rest know all about it. But not too many people want big drill presses. And who knows what else they have?

I located a really nice Buffalo #18. They want $450, which is high for a machine that routinely turns up for $250, but it seems like a wonderful platform for a 3-phase motor and VFD.

Last night I went to Practicalmachinist.com to get advice on an Ebay drill press. It’s in Amelia Island, and the ad says it’s a Buffalo Forge Model 29. I’m fairly sure there is no such thing. It looks like a Model 18. But I can’t get the seller to answer any questions. It amazes me how lazy people are, in this bad economy. Nobody at Practicalmachinist had any input, but I did notice Jdunmyer over there!

Unfortunately, I got to reading about machining. That was a mistake. I managed to get machining out of my system a year or two ago, and last night I found myself looking at small mills and lathes again.

Fortunately, I was saved by the photos of people’s machining projects. It appears that almost nobody does anything with machine tools except for making models of engines. I’m sure this is lots of fun, but what if you don’t want to make engines? I thought machine tools would be fun for a more general purpose. I figured I could use them to make stuff I designed, but since almost nobody else does that, I assume it must be difficult.

Once again, I checked out local machining courses, and they do not exist. I can drive to the next county five times a week in the morning–for 14 months–but other than that, there is nothing out there.

So I think I can put machine tools out of my mind for a while. Although I did create a Smartflix account, just in case.

The disease never goes away completely. It just goes into remission.

Tool Quest Resembles Archaeology

I am fed up with the drill press scene. There are lots of bargains out there, but nothing quite fits the bill. I want a 6″ stroke, a low speed near 250 RPM, and a tough adjustable head casting that will last forever. Nothing out there fits the description.

Since I got wise to the VFD revolution, it has occurred to me that the best thing may be to MAKE a drill press. I could find myself some kind of old drill press that has a 6″ stroke and a split head, and I could put a new motor in it with a VFD. Problem solved, and it should be cheaper than buying a ready-to-use press that isn’t really right for me. But how do you get your hands on a US-made drill press that fits that description?

Some dude has a Powermatic 1200 head for sale on Ebay. Three hundred and something dollars. I wonder if it might be a good buy. Not sure how I’d compensate for the lack of a stand and table.

The Powermatic table is nothing to write home about; losing it is not a sacrifice. I’d want a woodworking table, which I would probably make for myself. I don’t know what people who have woodworking tables do, when they want to drill metal. I suppose sometimes they don’t have to change anything. Maybe woodworking drill press tables are supposed to attach to existing metalworking tables.

Another possibility: someone in Pasco County is selling a Buffalo #18 drill press. This is a cool piece of old iron with a 6″ stroke and four speeds. Might be the optimal candidate for a VFD.

Hmm…

More Quasi-Woodworking

Here is amazing news. I have a planer sled.

Sort of.

I read about these things a while back. The idea is, you make a platform with a flat bottom, and you make it narrow enough to go through a planer. You put your crooked wood on the platform and adjust it so it won’t rock, and then you plane it. Presto, instant jointer. It gives you one flat, straight side. Then you can flop it over and do the other side. At that point, you have a board that is both flat and straight, and you only used one machine. The edges will still be weird, but you can fix that with a table saw jig, which I have not yet built. Or you can use a router.

I had two sheets of MDF I bought by mistake, so I used those for the top and bottom. You sandwich something very straight between two sheets of flat wood or whatever, and this gives you a platform that won’t bend and give you bad results. I guess most people use plywood, but like I said, I had MDF lying around.

That part was easy. I ripped them on the table saw, easy as pie Then I had problems. The purpose of this jig is to help you make straight, flat stuff, but you really need straight, flat stuff to make it. And I didn’t have any. I tried to make some from two-by-sixes on the table saw; it worked before. This time the results were no good; you need one straight edge to use as a reference, and I didn’t have one. I tried making a straight edge with the router, and the end result was that I learned it’s possible to use a router on aluminum. I gouged big depressions in the drywall square I used as a template.

Off to Home Depot I went, to buy eight feet of red oak. Sometimes you just have to admit you’re beat.

When I got it all put together, I had a 49″ by 12″ sled, 1 3/4″ tall. I used both screws and glue to hold it together, and I sunk the screws below the level of the MDF to keep them away from the planer. I checked it with my brand new, non-gouged drywall square (shut up), and it’s so flat I can’t find any deflection in it.

I still have to put the other features on it, like a cleat in front to keep the planer from pulling wood off the sled. But that stuff is small potatoes compared to building the sled body.

I can’t tell you how great it is to have that huge flat surface to work on. I mean the table saw extension. No more stooping to put stuff on the garage floor. No more piling stuff on the workbench. I have room to burn.

Eventually I’ll get the other parts put on, and then we’ll see if it does anything.

I had no desire to buy a big table saw. I had no use for 64″ rails. But look how this thing has worked out. It’s a blast.

I’m a little bummed out by the drill press news. The dealer with the used Powermatics wants $850 for a belt-change press. I can get one in 110V, which is good, but I would still have to get a VFD to go down to 200 RPM.

It’s amazing how hard it is to buy a drill press that is adequate. Virtually any cabinet table saw would suit me perfectly. There are tons of great routers. There are lots of good compressors. But every drill press has a major deficiency, it seems like.

I was considering making a motor cover for my saw. A lot of woodworkers use plywood, but I think the best option is sheet metal. Of course, that would make it absolutely necessary for me to buy a PRESS BRAKE.

It never ends.