Column mill thoughts?

General Discussion
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This mill is available local, anyone have experience with something similar? https://madison.craigslist.org/tls/d/madison-enco-column-mill-drill-basement/7843759931.html

  • Something bigger isn’t an option, it’s this or a benchtop mill. Or waiting to find a small horizontal mill.
  • It’s quite a bit cheaper than a new benchtop mill when factoring in shipping and the included DRO.
  • Portability is a plus for me as it might go in my garage, basement, or shed.
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I have a variant of this mill! Mine is a JET. It was also sold under the Grizzly brand name.

I got mine for $600 from Sacha White’s garage sale when he shut down speedvagen. It has some seriously bad runout, and a lot of backlash in the bed movement. But, the price was right. :slight_smile:

This mill has been a game changer for me. I use it constantly. At first I thought it would be basically a glorified drill press, but it’s been much more than that.
I use it with hole saws to miter all of my tubes, even chainstays and seat stays. I use it with end-mills to square off some tubes (like the ends of head tubes and the tops of segmented fork blades). I use a jeweler’s saw to cut my seat tube notches.
And I use a dial indicator in the spindle as a butt finder.

I really only have a few complaints about mine:

  • Changing spindle speed is a pain. It involves manually moving belts around in the complicated gear box on top. In fact, I don’t even keep that cover on anymore, because it’s so annoying. (Yours won’t have this problem, I guess because of the treadmill motor.)
  • The very small amount of z travel is had to work around. Prior to this I’d only used knee mills, so I’m used to being able to move the bed up and down without losing my x and y references. But on this thing, you have to loosen the whole upper assembly, which allows the spindle to move freely in x and y as well as z. Then once you have it clamped down again, you have to find your reference again. This is especially hard for me with no DRO combined with the backlash I mentioned before. It will be slightly easier for you with a DRO, but still you’ll probably be constantly trying to get the spindle at the right height he first time so you don’t have to adjust halfway through some operation when you change tools.
  • The limited Y travel is also sometimes frustrating. I get around this by doing nearly all of my work in the X direction.

Overall, I think it’s a great tool. I’m not sure if I would have gotten one for 1800, but the DRO and variable speed motor sound pretty nice.

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Thanks for the detailed response, I appreciate it! If I end up going for it I might pick your brain for tips and tricks. The price seems a bit high to me also but I didn’t really have any reference points or basis for that. I’m pretty new to machining, if he won’t go down on the price I’ll try and get him to toss in an hour or two of instruction.

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I also have one, Jet branded, they are all the same RongFu design, from Jet to Enco, HF and many more.

I use it for light machining and as a sturdier and more precise drill press, mostly for notching.
I paid around $600 with no tools but a nice vice. Needed some cleanup but other than that it’s serving me well.
There are plenty of guides on how to make them sturdier or on ways to overcome the shortcomings, they have quite a following.

I believe mine was a deal but that one seems to have a nice DRO, R8 collets (mine uses an MT3) and the variable speed motor, all nice improvements!

I would make him an offer, the DRO is valuable but I would not value it that much if not installed correctly, it’s always a DIY approach and I have seen real cheap jobs (and some magnificent ones).

Here in northern California I can find one for sale every other month, priced vary between 600 to 1200 depending on tooling and age mostly

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Another thing to consider is weight, when I got mine the owner had it on a cart but still we couldn’t get it on my trailer, long story short I had to hire some help to move it right then and there and it costed me another $100 total.

Having it in pieces may be good as you can deep clean it as you install it and maybe move it alone.

Edit: I am surprised that in WI it would go for $1800 when even in CA I could find plenty of options for much less, I wonder if in WI the knee mills are more common and cheaper while in CA smaller units like this ones are the norm and knee mills more expensive.

However, just to give you a reference point:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/9728542763870439/
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1225481051682797/
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2120443165139552/
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1043047947647271/
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/627355230165152/

There is also a FB group dedicated to “round column mills”

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Thanks for all that info! Yeah, I see a couple knee mills each month on auction sites but hardly anything on the smaller size. I’m not sure what the knee mills end up going for. This gives me a great reference to start talking price with him.

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Worse case: road trip!! :smiley:

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iI had one of those branded McMillan in Australia. Agree with the comments above in it’s pro’s and cons. If it’s in good mechanical condition then it might be worth it but I reckon it’s a touch on the pricey side tbh. You can do a lot with them if you are creative enough. I was able to machine drop outs and horst link pivots and make jigs with parallel slots etc. Even made a tuber bending die for the press using a rotary table and boring head. If you push it had it can flex a little, I mean doing stuff it wasn’t intended for though. Like milling with bigger cutters and hard materials.

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There’s one on Seattle CL right now for $400, but no DRO or mist coolant, and original single-phase AC motor so speed control is by belt-flipping. And you don’t want to drive to Seattle for it! Just another data point for market price on these.

Mine is similar, also Enco but newer than this one. Dunno if that’s better, it could be the older ones were better made. I’m happy with mine though, don’t mind the workarounds for the round column, I’m used to it. You do things like shorten your chucking reamer so it’s similar length to the other tools you need on that same hole: spotting drill, tap drill, tap and handle with tap follower, etc. All the tools you need on one hole need to be within the range of the quill travel so you don’t lose your X and Y between tool changes.

You can also zero an indicator on something vertical (e.g. precision square) before loosening the head bolts, then set it back to zero before tightening. And re-check after tightening, because tightening the head can move it a little — fun!

But the thing is pretty skookum for a benchtop. I’ve taken some decently deep cuts in steel. I swapped the motor for a 3-phase with a VFD but I still have to flip belts once in a while to go from very slow (say a holesaw over 2") to very fast (drilling small holes, or milling alu with 2-flute endmill.) I run the vfd from half-speed (30 Hz) to double speed (120 Hz), which is enough range for most speeds I use, just not the extremes. Some people push their drive to slower and/or faster than I do but there’s some risk to the motor in that.

Pretty sure everyone with a DRO will agree, they’re a must on a mill. It was a happy day when I got mine installed, and poof, no more backlash. I mean it’s still there, but you get to pretty much ignore it.

One thing not often mentioned about these mill-drills is they almost never get used in industry, so most only saw hobbyist or home-handyman usage. Yeah a Bridgeport is better in many ways but lots of the ones you see for sale have been used for 3 shifts a day since the dawn of time. Tighten the gibs with the table near the center and you won’t be able to travel all the way to either end because of all the extra wear in the middle. Loosen it enough for full travel to the ends and it’ll be loose in the middle.

BTW that’s a good check to perform on any used mill you’re thinking of buying, but not in this case since the mill in question is disassembled. You’ll just have to hope the ways aren’t too worn — but they probably aren’t, since it’s unlikely it was used for production.

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duplicated post somehow, delete?

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Thanks everyone, all this info is very helpful. Sounds like this machine would work great for me, we’ll see if I can get him down on the price. It’s a “nice to have” for me, not a need to have, so if the value’s not there I’ll just wait for the next one.

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IMO its way overpriced, I’m in Callfornia and as said above these come up regularly, no tooling or vise with this one so add at least $300 for basics if you’re lucky and find some used, main disadvantage of round columns is height changes of the head which then requires recalibrating. It has a dro and infinite speed motor but are they in decent working condtion? Personally I would never buy any mill(or other machine tool) without having the opportunity to operate it or have the seller demonstrate its functions, without that it’s a real crapshoot. I’ve owned a round columns like this one and it’s ok with workarounds, also two Clausing 8530s which were much nicer, probably lucky but I bought each of them with decent tooling for under $1800. Take a hard pass on this one, keep looking.

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For the tools, I buy them from littlemachineshop.com, they are chinese made but I feel like they are at least of decent quality for the home builder as I trust the store. Still I agree that a vice and basic tooling will set you back at least $300

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I prefer used US-made tools over new Chinese. Or I should say used high-quality tools, doesn’t have to be US.

My mill came with a Chinese vise, and I used it for a while, but when a used Yuasa (Japan) came up on local CL, the upgrade made a big difference. They look the same from 10 feet away but the experience is night and day. Or get an ugly old Kurt with lots of amateur marks on the jaws, because jaws (and every other small part) are available for sale. Or hey, you have a milling machine now, so you can make 'em.

Manual machining has pretty much died out in industry, everything being CNC (or additive), so the fine old tools used by the the previous generation of machinists can often be got for pennies on the dollar from the heirs when the old man passes.

And no tariffs!

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