Looking to buy first mill

[vimes1984]

Hey there,

I'm based in EIRE and am in the market for a milling machine, I've never owned or operated a milling machine before. I have a very small woodworking shop (thickness planer, cnc router miter saw wood lathe band sae and a TON of hand tools which is where most of my work is done) and a Chinese mini lathe ( barely used because it sucks...).

I'm looking into getting into gear hobbing ( unsure of the correct term here) and wanted to buy a mill for the shop I've looked at the following shops for now:
AMADEAL Ltd.

https://www.warco.co.uk/
SIEG Milling Machines and Accessories - Arc Euro Trade

and

Milling Machines - Machinery | Axminster Tools Ireland.



So my question is WHICH ONE do I buy...

Max budget is around 1,500 Euros MAX MAX...

 

[Sideways]

The Axminster ones are made by Sieg in Shanghai, just in their house colours and with slighly different features so just compare prices and warranties for the features you want.
Amadeal also sell the much higher spec. Syil machines starting at 3-4x your budget so have that additional experience.
The only Warco lathe I was ever involved with was defective straight from the crate so cannot recommend.
All the mini mills lack power, precision and capacity compared to a old industrial machine, but they will have the comfort of a warranty and they are small. You may not have space for bigger.

What size gears do you need to cut and what will they be made of ?

Have you considered a horizontal mill ? They are well suited to cutting gears.

 

[heimlaga]

Isn't it pretty much impossible to get a tolerable gear tooth profile with a vertical mill? At least I have been told so.

You need eithera horizontal mill or a metal shaper for cutting gear teeth as far as I know. Plus a good dividing head and a lathe for making the mandrels onto which the gear wheel is mounted while cutting th teeth.
A horizontal mill requires some rather expensive tooling. A shaper can be run with home ground cheap tooling but it is an almost lost skill that certainly will take a little bit of effort to regain. The oldest machinist I know said that they quit cutting gear wheels on shapers just before he started learning the trade in the late 50-ies.

 

[vimes1984]

Heeey there all!
@Sideways thanks for the info, I have considered a horizontal mill but I'm not sure if I can do other milling operations on it....
@heimlaga what is a metal shaper?

Chris

 

[heimlaga]

This is my metal shaper as it stands awaiting rebuild

 

[deema]

The equipment to cut gears on a mill is expensive. You need some form of rotary indexer that can achieve the rotational divisions you require for the gear. In most cases you also need a tail support that is matched to your indexer.
Cutting gears usually requires support of the cut gear opposite to the cutter, which means horizontal milling (unless your Hobbing) So, to do it on a vertical mill most likely you need a converter to allow it to horizontal mill. I have a Bridgeport clone and the horizontal converter which I use for gear cutting that is made by Vertex.
The best of all worlds is achieved by looking for a universal mill, one that has both vertical and horizontal milling capability. Unfortunately small machines are highly sort after and usually very expensive.

 

[chaoticbob]

Hey there,

I'm based in EIRE and am in the market for a milling machine, I've never owned or operated a milling machine before. I have a very small woodworking shop (thickness planer, cnc router miter saw wood lathe band sae and a TON of hand tools which is where most of my work is done) and a Chinese mini lathe ( barely used because it sucks...).

I'm looking into getting into gear hobbing ( unsure of the correct term here) and wanted to buy a mill for the shop I've looked at the following shops for now:
AMADEAL Ltd.

https://www.warco.co.uk/
SIEG Milling Machines and Accessories - Arc Euro Trade

and

Milling Machines - Machinery | Axminster Tools Ireland.



So my question is WHICH ONE do I buy...

Max budget is around 1,500 Euros MAX MAX...

A horizontal mill is doubtless the machine of choice for cutting gears, but (pace hemilaga) it can certainly be done on a vertical mill, which is a more versatile machine for general use. As deema says you will need to budget for some sort of indexer - to give you an idea of what's involved, here is a setup on a Warco WM14 - not gear cutting, but the same sort of thing -

to produce this:

The device on the left is a 6" Vertex rotary table, about £250, then a chuck maybe £100, then a tailstock about £50. Gear cutters come in at about £20. Then you need to buy or make arbors to hold the cutters.

I don't want to put you off, just underlining the point that cutting gears isn't as just a matter of buying a mill - you need other gubbins.

On suppliers, I have never had any problem with Warco myself, my little WM14 ran true out of the crate and has been reliable over the last six years. Arc and Axminster both source from Seig - basically the same machines.

Ivan Law's book is worth a read if you want to get serious about gears!

Bob.

 

[Fergie 307]

Hey there,

I'm based in EIRE and am in the market for a milling machine, I've never owned or operated a milling machine before. I have a very small woodworking shop (thickness planer, cnc router miter saw wood lathe band sae and a TON of hand tools which is where most of my work is done) and a Chinese mini lathe ( barely used because it sucks...).

I'm looking into getting into gear hobbing ( unsure of the correct term here) and wanted to buy a mill for the shop I've looked at the following shops for now:
AMADEAL Ltd.

https://www.warco.co.uk/
SIEG Milling Machines and Accessories - Arc Euro Trade

and

Milling Machines - Machinery | Axminster Tools Ireland.



So my question is WHICH ONE do I buy...

Max budget is around 1,500 Euros MAX MAX...

I have the Amadeal 25, about £1500 now I think but does have a swivel head so theoretically can be used for horizontal work, although I have never tried it. Good machine though. For gear cutting you are going to need a really rigid machine, which rules out anything much smaller. Amadeal probably do all the other stuff you would need, and are pretty good at doing a deal of you buy a load of stuff at once. Still unlikely to manage to get everything you need in your budget though.

 

[clogs]

vimes1984

sorry to write privately but avoid anything Warco......
most other engineering forums it's always asked why has this gone wrong.....
I originally wanted a small mill for hobby use and looked at a Warco locally......LUCKY for me it turns out the widow sold the house with all the machines.....I looked at a new one direct from Warco and got a bad feeling about the deal......
so 2 lucky escapes.....
In the end I bought a used (one owner, plastics factory) J head Bridgeport and then an as new Myford VMF (still with delivery wax on it) which is roughly 2/3rds the size of the Bridgeport.........
now both of my mills use R8 style tooling, plenty of used tooling about and often quite reasonably priced.....
Not sure what the warco uses.....

I would not buy anything Chinese unless it's professional......
u'll just loose money in the end.....
OK if u find a cheap one but I mean cheap....then quality doesn't really matter u can spend time fixing it up....

good luck Frank

 

[Fergie 307]

Cutting gears on a vertical machine is quite straightforward. You need to mount your blank in a horizontal indexing set up, so indexing table and matching tailstock, then just present the blank to your rotary cutter at either the three or nine o'clock position, instead of 12 o'clock as you would if using a horizontal machine, if that makes sense. If you want the gears to be accurate then positioning of the tool is very important. Most cheap machines don't have accurate enough scales for this, so you really want a dro set up, further expense I'm afraid. I doubt you will be able to get everything you need new for much less than £2k.

 

[Fergie 307]

vimes1984

sorry to write privately but avoid anything Warco......
most other engineering forums it's always asked why has this gone wrong.....
I originally wanted a small mill for hobby use and looked at a Warco locally......LUCKY for me it turns out the widow sold the house with all the machines.....I looked at a new one direct from Warco and got a bad feeling about the deal......
so 2 lucky escapes.....
In the end I bought a used (one owner, plastics factory) J head Bridgeport and then an as new Myford VMF (still with delivery wax on it) which is roughly 2/3rds the size of the Bridgeport.........
now both of my mills use R8 style tooling, plenty of used tooling about and often quite reasonably priced.....
Not sure what the warco uses.....

I would not buy anything Chinese unless it's professional......
u'll just loose money in the end.....
OK if u find a cheap one but I mean cheap....then quality doesn't really matter u can spend time fixing it up....

good luck Frank

I agree, was quite shocked by the amount of slack in their lathes, and these were machines on their stand at a show, where you would have thought they would have brought their best stuff. My Amadeal machine took a bit of work to get it set up correctly. At the factory they appear to just assemble all the parts in the correct order and put it in a crate. Set up and adjustment is down to the customer. This is fine as long as you realise, but I have come across a few people who have little experience with machine tools, and have been disappointed with the performance of their machines because they naively, although perhaps not unreasonably, expect that a brand new machine should be good to go straight out of the crate. In reality of course any lathe is going to need levelling at the very least, and the slides set up to suit you, and likewise a mill will need the slides adjusting and to be trammed accurately. But the quality of the machining and so forth in my Amadeal is very good, and set up properly it's a nice accurate machine, and big enough to be good and rigid. Would have loved an old Bridgeport or similar but just don't have the room.

 

[Fergie 307]

In fairness my Amadeal machine is undoubtedly from the same factory as the Warcos, it is effectively a heavier duty version of the machine Warco sell as the Warco 16, bigger capacity and motor etc, perhaps if Warco sold this version they would call it an 18 ? I think my criticism applies to all Chinese machines I have encountered, some are very well made, but don't tend to be set up accurately out of the box. If you are used to machine tools then you will expect to have to check everything once the machine is installed in its final home. Some people don't realise this and have problems with chatter and other issues, which are often just down to the machine not being set up and adjusted correctly, rather than there being anything basically wrong with it. I have no connection with Amadeal other than as a satisfied customer, but worth comparing specs carefully. You can buy a machine from Warco, painted green and yellow, or from Amadeal in grey and blue, but the Amadeal machines often have a subtly better spec, so are probably better value. I dare say the price is at least partly to do with the fact that Amadeal don't have a fancy showroom etc to pay for!

 

[sawtooth-9]

You can cut gears on a horizontal or vertical machine - it's just the set up is different. Yes, you will need a dividing head and chuck plus the gear cutters.
The best option is to go for a mill that allows you to horizontal mill ( easiest for gear cutting set up ) with a vertical head which will provide flexibility.
If cutting gears on a horizontal set up - best to get a stub arbour to mount the cutter.
Forget using a shaper for gear cutting - it can be done, but why go through the extra drama ?

 

[Jameshow]

???why do you want to cut gears????

If your making a steam engine for instance the plans/instructions will tell you what sort machinery you require?

Seems like you need to figure out what you want to make and then work back from there in terms of machines....