Framebuilders - Lathe or Vertical Mill?

I'm moving the shop and am now able to get heavy tooling in and out. Yes! My question is to those who have ridden ( or are currently) down this path. What are the advantages of a Lathe vs. Vertical Mill? Has technology progressed enough in the tooling it's self to warrant a newer machine vs. vintage machine?

I'm seeing plenty of vintage mills at great pricing. I don't know enough about the mills to determine if they're on borrowed time. What should I look for immediately upon inspection?

My space is wired for 3 phase or single.

Thanks gents! I don't want to make a 1000.00 mistake.

BTW if your in the Midwest (Ohio) and your wanting to unload a machine PM me.

Stanridgespeed.com

If you can only afford one machine, I think it probably should be a lathe. You can do a lot of operations. I miter on the lathe. A lot of things are easier on a vertical mill, an old Bridgeport with a variable speed head is really nice. You're in the right territory to be able to pick up small horizontal mills very cheaply, that is the ultimate mitering machine.

One can do a very detailed analysis of lathes vs mills, generally and vs. each other for frames. I think one can cut to the chase by saying that a mill is significantly more useful to frames due to stuff like the Anvil type set up for cutting tubes, manufacturing drops, drilling, making fixtures. A good small shop mill is normally more expensive and rarer, though the larger and desireable Bridgeports are easily found if you have the space and can justify them (mostly an issue for the small shop). If you have the space, there is little reason not to have a lathe also since they are normally very cheap and are irreplaceable. The ideal frame making lathe which is spec wise like the ideal small shop gunsmithing lathe, is not as easily found or cheap.

In the case of a Mill the ideal is a Bridgeport, the next a vintage clone, there are also large horizontals that are ideal for mitering, and can cost as little as 200-400, but are not as versatile for all around use. For the small shop I am pretty happy with my Clausing vertical, though I also looked at small Bridgeports.

For lathes I like the South Bend Heavy 10. Southbend lathes are easy to move because they disassemble, but for a one time commercial instalation that is less of an issue. There are more parts and accessories for 193s0 south bends than new chinese lathes. I like a lathe with 36 inch bed and over 1.125" through the head.

For a lathe the main issue is wear on the bed, look for wear on the forward rail near the head; Worn split nuts; uneven operating presure in the screws, worn or chipped gears, excessive run out in the head, frozen parts. Often the bed will tell you what you will find elsewhere. Main upgrades are quick release tool posts: power feeds on the x and y axis; and a gearbox for changegears. However there are workaround for all this stuff, and you sometimes find mintier tools if they didn't have all the bells and whistles and were used only on sundays.

For mills you want to run a dial indicator on the 3 axis to see if they are all traveling square. Also look for lack of free operation of the hadnwheels. This normally creeps in if the machine was heavily used and had been worn in the sweat spot. Sometime one can work around this, and it can be fixed (if you have a reasonably priced local shop or a lot of time). For bigger machines there should be enough choice to get something nice.

Upgrades would be dros, but they aren't normally found at bargain prices, and there are cheap partial work arounds, and tooling is nice to have for either machine. If you have a boyant local scene you ought to be able to find lathes or mills with lots of accessories and tooling and it is worth holding out for these deals since they will save a lot of money for you. Often prices are set in some relationship to scrap prices so there really isn't a price increase for the machine that is minty and has everything, not compared to replacement cost anyway.

Check Lathes.uk site for bios of old machines.

CNC is wonderful tech, but for the stuff that happens in a high end frame shop, I think manual jigged set ups and lots of stations or tools would be more efficient until very large scale was reached.

If your setting up for the long term
A simple good 6" centre height Lathe is first {with 35mm bore**
then you can make things and mitre etc
then as $ are available, a mill
Lots of expensive mitring fixtures and tooling set up under a mill is only useful if you are making a few frames a week all year long
and you have a market to sustain that level of production
any thing else is being silly

thanks guys for your time and detailed posts I really appreciate your input.

Silverbraze, admit it you are a lathe fan though, as well as an expert frame builder. I have 7 lathes in my shop, but I try to be objective despite my preferences. :)

I just play around with this stuff, but I don't really go to the lathe for anything when making a frame. I will face a few things just because I enjoy it, but I really don't need to and probably wouldn't do that if my lathe were set up for mitering. I'm looking forward to making a hub when I get back.

There is a lot of potential lathe work in a frame, but most of it seems to be done for me like BBs or is done with specialized reamers and facers. The only specific job mentioned by either pro is mitering which can be done on a lathe for sure, as long as you use it like a 2 axis mill. That is really mill work and since mills are about the price of a battery drill around here, I just don't see the point in evolving a process and tooling for machines not really designed for the work.

It took me about a year to get the contacts to get all the tools cheap, and by then I had paid a little more for them. By the end, I had older guys trying to get me to come pick up their stuff just to get it out of the house. One guy gave me a bit sharpener/ surface grinder, and tried to get me to take his 2 station german mill, and a really nice lathe he had for 400 total. Stuff is out there as the manual economy is shuffling off to the dump.

Silverbraze, admit it you are a lathe fan though, as well as an expert frame builder. I have 7 lathes in my shop, but I try to be objective despite my preferences. :)

I just play around with this stuff, but I don't really go to the lathe for anything when making a frame. I will face a few things just because I enjoy it, but I really don't need to and probably wouldn't do that if my lathe were set up for mitering. I'm looking forward to making a hub when I get back.

There is a lot of potential lathe work in a frame, but most of it seems to be done for me like BBs or is done with specialized reamers and facers. The only specific job mentioned by either pro is mitering which can be done on a lathe for sure, as long as you use it like a 2 axis mill. That is really mill work and since mills are about the price of a battery drill around here, I just don't see the point in evolving a process and tooling for machines not really designed for the work.

It took me about a year to get the contacts to get all the tools cheap, and by then I had paid a little more for them. By the end, I had older guys trying to get me to come pick up their stuff just to get it out of the house. One guy gave me a bit sharpener/ surface grinder, and tried to get me to take his 2 station german mill, and a really nice lathe he had for 400 total. Stuff is out there as the manual economy is shuffling off to the dump.


yeah yeah agreed
but for punters starting up
so many are led to believe they need a mill and anvil fixtures to make a frame
which is not the case.
for me the lathe is more making small tools, aligment cones, table mounts, braze finger stands.............the list is endless
and so many other little jobs
rather than the actual frame making.
However I do use the lathe for cutting the the fork crown seat. Bloody brilliant for that.
and squaring off HT for the alignment cones to sit proper for the aligmments during the build process before brazing and cutting excess off and reaming
oh and I square the HT end of lugs before use to ensure accurate building as well and this ensures one is true when trimming off the HT for good alignment entry of the reamer facer cutter tool


yeah and when the next fist full of cash from making the first 50 frames is banked, get a cheap/good mill.
and be happy

If it was lathe or mill first
I say Lathe first
and when one has the lathe
then the mill next asap
and I will add, many times it is the tooling that will cost more then the actual machine.

well really it depends what you want to do with the machines. do you plan on buying the latest whiz bang fixtures that everyone on flickr has? or are you more interesting in time spent learning the machines and the amazing things they can do?

i see so many photostreams of folks using mills as nothing more than big old tube notchers it makes me sad.

if you want to make tools, fixtures, jigs, widgets, and the such its really hard to say that you dont need a vert mill and a lathe.

personally i have an emco v10p, a small 3 in 1 (lathe/mill/drill). although its not the largest most powerful machine, a savvy individual can make it do a lot.

well really it depends what you want to do with the machines. do you plan on buying the latest whiz bang fixtures that everyone on flickr has? or are you more interesting in time spent learning the machines and the amazing things they can do?
yes yes
i see so many photostreams of folks using mills as nothing more than big old tube notchers it makes me sad.
yes yes yes , sad and silly
if you want to make tools, fixtures, jigs, widgets, and the such its really hard to say that you dont need a vert mill and a lathe.
yes and yes again
personally i have an emco v10p, a small 3 in 1 (lathe/mill/drill). although its not the largest most powerful machine, a savvy individual can make it do a lot.

one uses machine tools to further ones capabilities
not to look cool while pretending to look like a established production builder

I have to say that I end up using the lathe more often. Making binders, clamps, facing tubes, thinning tubes, etc. I used a mill only a few times and it was to make fixtures, simples ones and a complex one. That being said I don't own them, I'm fortunate to have access to a student shop.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4821186230_2002636fe2.jpg

Surface plate sourced for 300.00. Found it in a barn in Lima Ohio. Jig from Doug Fattic..found it in Niles MI.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4821186224_0269019c8a.jpg

Old Delta press sourced for $75.00. S*%t, it may be a collectors item. Laugh.

No sweet anodized tooling in my shop. Im in it for the long haul. Not enough capital for the latest and greatest. I don't need the latest and greatest to build nice frames... yes?

BTW what can I rub into the Iron on the plate to keep the little bit of surface rust off the top?

"BTW what can I rub into the Iron on the plate to keep the little bit of surface rust off the top?"

You can use wax, just floor wax. There could be contamination issues but I have never had a problem, I just apply a coat and rub it off and usually that is it. Keep in mind that most drilling should be done in a vise or other fixture so the condition of the table shouldn't mater. There are also dry silicone products I have used on woodworking tools. I have also used blacking agents like gun cold blue. I have used camelia oil. Of course traditionally machine tools are so covered with cutting oil this doesn't come up, but that doesn't work in my shop though as time goes by I use more and more oil if still in eyedropper amounts.

"yeah yeah agreed
but for punters starting up
so many are led to believe they need a mill and anvil fixtures to make a frame"

That is why I said anvil type fixtures, meaning more or less anything designed to hold the parts. I personally use a variety of hand methods, as well as machine tools though experience indicates each of these is just as rant worthy. Don't have anvil fixtures for my mill.

I actually find it hard to believe many are led to believe they need Anvil tooling since there are so many who push alternatives and there are many top builders who are pre-Anvil and make no bones about it, and there is the whole Paternek thing, Fattic, and so on. But frame building is all about excess consumption - it doesn't pop up in Biafra. It exists to create unecesarilly nice bikes using, for some, unecesarily nice looking tooling. The Anvil tooling is pretty much in the same price range as the nicer custom bikes so the mindset should be familiar.

Having said that I visited the Velo salon smoke out or something for the first time yesterday. This guy has the perfect frame shop... :) He just needs to paint all the mills the same colour though!

http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f22/maietta-cycles-15910-2.html

"i see so many photostreams of folks using mills as nothing more than big old tube notchers it makes me sad."

Unless people rescue these old mills they are headed for the dump. If you are lucky they aren't a lot more expensive than a notcher. I have seen horizontals, aside from the free ones for as little as 100 bucks.

I use Johnson's paste wax on my tablesaw, it's still bright and shiny. Probably jinxing myself

Unless people rescue these old mills they are headed for the dump. If you are lucky they aren't a lot more expensive than a notcher. I have seen horizontals, aside from the free ones for as little as 100 bucks.

Where are you seeing the 100.00 mills! Yikes!

for me the lathe is more making small tools, aligment cones, table mounts, braze finger stands.............the list is endless
and so many other little jobs
rather than the actual frame making.
However I do use the lathe for cutting the the fork crown seat. Bloody brilliant for that.

What bed length should I be looking for on a lathe? I need to be conservative because of space and dinero.

What bed length should I be looking for on a lathe? I need to be conservative because of space and dinero.

24" is fine, length for me has never been a problem ;-)

"What bed length should I be looking for on a lathe? I need to be conservative because of space and dinero."

Length doesn't normally cost you much for two reasons:

1) Big lathes larger than grampa jobs are bound for the dump and cheap, if you want to get into one. On the other hand the old small stuff tends to go for weight type prices unless it is special. The extra length does not add much weigth. Same is somewhat true of chinese lathes. Modern quality lathes will get more expensive if larger, but but only NASA is buying that kind of stuff. There is one old brand that shows up pretty often for 400-3000, and they are still made run like 1000K for the same thing!

2) Longer saves you money since a large capacity through the head of the lathe tends to make a lathe more expensive, but you can get the same turnigng capacity from a long bed with a steady rest.

For frames, I would buy a 36". Keep two things in mind. Different cultures measure lathes differently. Some measure the arbor to quill distance, some measure the bed length which is sorter by the who head mechanism and tail stock, and some measure between centeres. OOn a small lathe like an SB 9", you want to have enough bed lenght to get something done between you jaw chuck with the toolpost outboard. On a longer tube that would be minimum 36", and could be 48. If you have a big hole in the arbor, you rarely use more than about 12" of ourboard bed, but it doesn't hurt to have the longer bed. If you buy a desireable lathe, it resells at no loss because it is already trading in the secondary market.

"Where are you seeing the 100.00 mills! Yikes!"

Normally low prices are on Kijiji, or craigs. Free come from knowing people. For horizontals I see lots of them from 400-500. I saw one for 100 in Barrie ontario. It sat there for quite a while. A farmer had it for a while. It was a perfect size to run a hole saw through a tube. I saw a 400 that looked brand new lasted a few hours was bridgeport quality, I just didn't have the space. To get these deal you have to have the money in your hand and saw "I coming over cash in hand".

I use Johnson's paste wax on my tablesaw, it's still bright and shiny. Probably jinxing myself

I use paste car wax on my woodworking tools (joiner, table saw, planer) and it works great.

I hope it's silicone free car wax.

"24" is fine, length for me has never been a problem ;-) "


Is your headstock large enough to pass tubes through, or do you work mostly between centers?

I hope it's silicone free car wax.

It is...pure Carnuba

My grandfather retired from South Bend Lathe when it was actually located in South Bend, Indiana. I know nothing about lathes or mills even though I work with a vertical mill.

This really doesn't matter much to this thread and I know no one cares but that's how it goes I guess.

My grandfather retired from South Bend Lathe when it was actually located in South Bend, Indiana. I know nothing about lathes or mills even though I work with a vertical mill.

This really doesn't matter much to this thread and I know no one cares but that's how it goes I guess.That's pretty neat. I learned to use a lathe on a South Bend, and I still wish I had managed to find a Heavy 10.

Just the other day there was a thread somewhere about how competitive listing are in, I think, Portland. One of the items mentioned was a brand new, in the box Heavy Ten that they were asking 1000 for. That's a home run for whoever got it!

On the more gallactic level there is a guy on Practical Machinist, also an Oregonian who scored the all time find of all time. A research scientist from the east who retired in Oregon, built the super shop, and stocked it with every tool known to man of the very best imaginable quality, all found still in the box when he passed!. It's out there, you just have to believe. :)

I have a Wells Index mill that I don't need anymore. I am in Vermont and would let it go for $300.00. Missing a few pieces but really nice iron.

Many lathes aren't designed for negative tool pressure and shouldn't be used for mill type work. I used butchers bowling alley wax on my surfaces.

I just checked out a 1983 Bridgeport in average condition a few miles south of me just over the state border in Indiana. He is north of South Bend. He was asking $2100. It has digital readout. It has a 42" table and power on the long feed. It has the J variable speed head so it is a 3 phase motor that would need a phase converter if you only have single phase power. He was selling a phase converter too. It has R8 collets and a vise. It needs to be gone by Thursday. This is probably just a little below typical market value. However they don't show up often.

I removed the phone number from the post above, if someone wants it they can contact me

Which piece of equipment to get first is a little like asking should one get Campy or Shimano. We can be pretty passionate about our choices but it might not matter much if the chicken or the egg comes first. Eventually every builder will want both.

But my advice to those just starting to equip their shops and must to do so slowly would be to get a vertical mill first - particularly if you need to learn machining practices. Lathes seem to have a tougher learning curve. Those that love them the most and do the most with one are not rookies in a machine shop.

A mill is more often used to make the odds and ends of fixturing and a better suited to miter tubes (which you only want to make tooling for once). Of course you can miter on a lathe but it has greater challenges to get things exactly right.

I use my Bridgeport and South Bend vertical mills a lot more than my South Bend lathe. Your mileage may very.

I live in Niles, Michigan just above South Bend, Indiana. I go by the old South Bend lathe factory when I go to buy paint supplies. It was a huge plant that they just tore down last year. It struggled to exist for years. When the cheap Chinese imports started to arrive around 1980 is when they went into a downward slide. Before that they were raising their prices like 1 or 2 percent a month. Something had to give then. They reorganized with the employees buying out the ownership. But then they sued themselves to get a pay raise. That wasn’t a good sign that they had improved management. However just recently I was going to the South Bend airport and saw a building that said South Bend Lathe. I thought they had gone completely under and don’t know if that was a sign that hadn’t been taken down or they are still limping along.

Doug

Are the little 3 in 1 mill/drill/lathe combos worthwhile? I was recently looking at some of the Smithy and Grizzly combos but was unsure of their quality since they are fairly cheap. Alot of what I read says that individual machines is the better way to go if you have the space but I was just curious if you can turn out some good stuff with a combo-style lathe/mill. Right now I just have to outsource a few things to get it done.

i use a 3 in 1 mill/drill/lathe, an emco V10P from the 70s. it is a killer little machine that has some great features (power feeds, steady rest, toolpost grinder, good speed range, quick change gearbox for threading and feeds). most of the current smaller 3-in-1 machines copied the emco design and improved what it needed. for example the emco has a round vertical column, most new 3 in 1 machines have a square vertical column, which is more rigid.

ive heard horror stories of the quality of new chinese machines, but those were probably just a few bad apples. many people say that import machines will not last in the long run like a vintage chunk of american iron.

one gripe any owner of a 3 in 1 will tell you is that everytime to want to perform an operation the machine is set up for the opposite!! if you want to turn something, more than likely the milling vise is installed!!! oh now you want to machine something? well you probably have the compound rest on there! so there is a lot of going back and forth with that. if you plan ahead you can minimize how much swapping is going on.

other things to pay attention to is the diameter of the lathe spindle hole. mine is 3/4", so i cannot turn a crown race seat without using a steady rest. if you plan on doing a lot a heavy steel machining with the vertical unit than a 3-in-1 isnt for you.

i definitely would like a separate lathe and vert mill someday, but right now my little emco does everything i need it to, and have used it to make a couple fixtures and other tools.

I used to own one, but moved on to the old iron machines.

The thing I liked least about mine was that the mill size and lathe size are not really proportional. For most part the mills are in the mini mill size while the lathes often have somewat larger capacity than other machines of that class. So when I bought mine, the guy selling them told me he had a number of clients for them who used the lathe to turn car brakes, while the mill itself it sorta a gumball to hockey puck scale device. When reading about people's various metal working projects a combination that is pretty comon is a South Bend 9" lathe (smallest), and a Bridgeport milling machine. Many people who are amateurs like me would prefer a smaller mill if they could find it, just because the bridgeport is so large, but I am just pointing out that the ratio of mill to lathe for average projects is upside down on lathe mills, which isn't to say it wouldn't suit some people. But think of it this way. In theory, you could turn an object about 6 inches by thirty six inches on the small south bend lathe. That is certainly a Bridgeport sized object for the mill. In the real world of the past, a bunch of famous gunsmiths owned 9 inch lathes and worked on barrels on them. The same barrels would require a large Bridgeport to profile into an octagon. If I owned a mill drill I would do the mitering on the lathe, not the milling machine, so why have the mill. A mini mill would be at it's limit routing out a drop, etc...

The format of an MD is not ideal there is stuff being asked of it that isn't right. A mill table should not be the guts of a lathe, with the thrust going down into the lathe bed, etc... Often I found mill or lathe parts in the way of some operation. There are some benefits though, The mill table held the tools for the lathe, and provides certain versatility you don't find in a lathe. Mostly bad though.

Worst thing layout wise is that ofen jobs go back and forth betweem milling and the lathe. This creates gigantic set-up time as the MD switches from one format to another.

If you talk about the small end of the mill drill range, it isn't big enough for bikes, would be better than nothing, but not a solution.

There is one large mill drill, the yellow one with the overhead bridge, that is pretty nice. I got a chance, too late, to buy one. Proving that everything turns up eventually. Glad I didn't get it, but people say they are better than some others.

Beyond the objections so far, mill drills are mostly asian, and there are all the problems with those. The metal quality is really low. A friend got a 30K lathe at work, and the cross slide just snapped off in a cut! I don't know much about cast iron, but I know what I like. The old stuff is the good stuff. And for the amateur, certain brands like South Bend have way more support with ebay, and even a continuing parts supplier for NOS at retail. Also, the cool suppliers, the lathe world's Anvils and Pacentis are making stuff for the home shop guy to fit South Bends, though there are also suppliers who do stuff for the mini lathes. But overall the SB field is more fun.

Another thing I found anoying about the Asian lathes is the way they deal with metric and imperial. For the most part these lathes are metric machines (OK for Bikes right?). But sometimes they are dialed imperial, or marked for change gears that are imperial, but actually they are metric, or vice versa. This is normal (on them). There was one importer who arranged an all imperial machine. But you can get machines that are half and half, a real mess at times. Gearing is such that either thread type can be cut with either machine (but it won't always be dead nuts, like using a tape to lay out inches based on 25mm per inch). There are metric south bends out there for that mater, though they are rare. I was brought up in both measures, and Canada is officially metric since the 70s. But I have given up on metric (though again bikes are different, but there is life outside of bikes). In machine tools often imperial is more accurate because the increment is the thou which is smaller than the 1/100 mm, or whatever. Anyway, I just mention all this so you can ask your own questions.

I did read at one point that in Asia, where little scooters and motor bikes are popular, that the local mechanic's shops "all" have a MD combo in the back, and presumably they can fix anything on it, probably pour and machine their own pistons as in the World's Fastest Indian. :) So just to say they aren't sending them to us 'cause they don't love them, from what I am told.

On the mills with round collumns etc... thing, a serious mill needs a vertical axis on a dovetail, a so called knee mill function. Many smaller mills only have serious functionality on the XY axes. The Z axiss is really a necesity, and it needs to be with significant throw. It comes in handy for stuff like step drilling, tooling of different heights. Indicating in work pieces, etc...

However just recently I was going to the South Bend airport and saw a building that said South Bend Lathe. I thought they had gone completely under and don’t know if that was a sign that hadn’t been taken down or they are still limping along.
Doug

For a long time, SB Lathe was making grinding equipment in south bend, rebuilding old machines, and selling an Australian made version of some of their machines. They went broke, again, and got bought out by someone, who continued to do mostly the same thing (which covers the move from S. Michigan to Bendix Dr.). In the last couple of years, the company that owned them sold the brand to the guy who founded Grizzly, who claims to be planning to sell high quality stuff. I've got my doubts, and I don't thing the US needs yet another importer of chinese machine tools.

Grizzly has been an importer of Chinese machine tools for decades, so that wouldn't really change. I'm pretty sure there is no future for U.S. built machines in the price range that most framebuilders could afford.

But my advice to those just starting to equip their shops and must to do so slowly would be to get a vertical mill first - particularly if you need to learn machining practices. Lathes seem to have a tougher learning curve. Those that love them the most and do the most with one are not rookies in a machine shop.
that's an interesting insight. The fact that I don't have a mill is really frustrating me right now, but I suspect that if I had a mill and no lathe the situation wouldn't be much different. I was going to note that there seem to be a lot more framebuilders that have just a mill than those that have just a lathe.

"BTW what can I rub into the Iron on the plate to keep the little bit of surface rust off the top?"

You can use wax, just floor wax. There could be contamination issues but I have never had a problem, I just apply a coat and rub it off and usually that is it. Keep in mind that most drilling should be done in a vise or other fixture so the condition of the table shouldn't mater. There are also dry silicone products I have used on woodworking tools. I have also used blacking agents like gun cold blue. I have used camelia oil. Of course traditionally machine tools are so covered with cutting oil this doesn't come up, but that doesn't work in my shop though as time goes by I use more and more oil if still in eyedropper amounts.

"yeah yeah agreed
but for punters starting up
so many are led to believe they need a mill and anvil fixtures to make a frame"

That is why I said anvil type fixtures, meaning more or less anything designed to hold the parts. I personally use a variety of hand methods, as well as machine tools though experience indicates each of these is just as rant worthy. Don't have anvil fixtures for my mill.

I actually find it hard to believe many are led to believe they need Anvil tooling since there are so many who push alternatives and there are many top builders who are pre-Anvil and make no bones about it, and there is the whole Paternek thing, Fattic, and so on. But frame building is all about excess consumption - it doesn't pop up in Biafra. It exists to create unecesarilly nice bikes using, for some, unecesarily nice looking tooling. The Anvil tooling is pretty much in the same price range as the nicer custom bikes so the mindset should be familiar.

Having said that I visited the Velo salon smoke out or something for the first time yesterday. This guy has the perfect frame shop... :) He just needs to paint all the mills the same colour though!

http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f22/maietta-cycles-15910-2.html

"i see so many photostreams of folks using mills as nothing more than big old tube notchers it makes me sad."

Unless people rescue these old mills they are headed for the dump. If you are lucky they aren't a lot more expensive than a notcher. I have seen horizontals, aside from the free ones for as little as 100 bucks.

Hey,

First quote here on this forum. Thanks for the link to my Smoked Out and mention of my shop. One of my three mills was $100 (actually bought from Don Walker for $100), another was had for $400 and the best of the three I think was $500. Nothing trumps experience, but I don't see the need to spend the time mitering chain stays with a hacksaw and file when I could do it in 20 seconds with a dedicated setup. The experience comes into play by welding them so you don't need to cold set them.

Tony

Hey Tony!

I think a part of the cultural difference is the weld vs lugs thing. Since lugs have several areas where there are passthroughs not found on welded frames, one could say that the mitering ends up being a bigger part of the job. And fits have to be perfect which is true all around, just true squared with TIG.

Thanks for jumping in a proving the 100 dollar mill thing Tony, and a much nicer mill than the one I saw.

Don F has some hints for welding and not cold setting, which is part of the fun of his approach.

I came to mills and lathes with huge non-metal building experience so all kinds of skills that other crafts share in comon were already in my hands. Layout, measurement, sharpening, understanding cutter geometry, fixturing, etc... But no machining per se, other than with a drill press, or band saw. I can't say I found either mills or lathes difficult to pick up. I did study several smartflix videos first, and found those really helpful. In fact I pretty much simultanously tought myself horizontal, and vertical mills, lathes, and shapers. Seemed kinda reenforcing. Of course one never stops learning, and I have a long way to go, but I would encourage anyone to jump in if you think you are ready for it, do your homework. Machining forums were very helpful, not really on specifics, but on soaking up the way it is done. The small domestic shop is not the same as the big machine shop, there are home shop methods that keep the coolant flow reasonable, for instance...

I would also point out that while cutting stuff on a mill is presumably milling, the mitering stuff done with hole saws, or strawberry saws, is somewhat tame.

I don't know what to say about Grizzly except it is much ahead of the brother's outfit up here in Canada!

OK, one thing I can Say about it is the guy who runs the place is a home shop guy at some level. When he gets interested in something like Guitarmaking, or Gunsmithing, all of a sudden a subset of hugely superior tools hits Grizzly, like the horizontal resaws they stock for guitarmakers, and the Gunsmithing lathes he has brought in. Unrelated as far as I know, they once sold a precision lathe for about 30K, not a big machine, but supposedly able to work in the tens. Not saying that means a resurrection of South Bend or anything, but the guy is interested in doing stuff other importers aren`t. There are still limits to the Chinese stuff. The limits are mostly in our marketplace as others have said. The Chinese are buying more high end CNC machinery than the rest of the world put together, or some such factoid. They are capable of anything quality wise if the market desires it, over time.

I take it the 3 in 1 machines are capable of handling the average frame building projects, for example mitering, making seatposts and dropouts, various jigs, etc. Are there limits to any of the standard bicycle tube sizes?

The machine I had was similar to this:

http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=B2229

It is 20 inches between centers, and 1.125 through the bore. Which would mean your chance of turning any 1.25" of say 18 or more would be low. You could miter on the lathe function but the mill is basically a mini mill so it would be a little outclassed for that. It would be very slow going for any milling of drops. If by various jigs one means the stay type jigs, it might be possible to do that on the lathe, but it would be a little tough since there isn't any Z axis, and in any case how any of that sets up is always going to be a head scratcher.

I'm sure this machine would be cheaper in the US, but so would old iron. You could easily get a Heavy ten for that price so why would one want this machine? Heavy ten has like 1.4 through the headstock just for starters. 5C collets, possibility of a gearbox for the changegears, moves more easily in parts, etc... Oh should also be a full resale value to modest higher value, not really a big time investment, but no loss. This assumes after all the grey haired guys are gone the market for these things doesn't collapse. :)

Just this morning there are 1500 items on ebay for SB lathe, and the first Heavy ten I saw was 1750, one could get much cheaper than that on a local sale, but they are out there.

One thing that is most frustrating about modern Asian lathes is that they don't have back gears. This means that by and large the lowest speed is too high for thread cutting. This really is a nasty fact when you run up against it. One of my first projecsts on my lathe was cutting morse taper hole saw adapters for my milling machine. Fun little project and allowed me to avoid the substantial cost of importing paragon. I can get stub MT 3 adapters around the corner.

Would a larger, heavier duty 3 in 1 increase work capability by much or are they all just capable of light duty projects?

Would a larger, heavier duty 3 in 1 increase work capability by much or are they all just capable of light duty projects?


from the sound of it (sorry if i am wrong) you have no machining experience?
i would recommend taking a local machining class at a community college or high school vo-tech.
i got my start taking night classes at the local vocational school. i learned the lathe, mill, bandsaw, and got to ask all the specific questions i had, plus got a machining fundamentals textbook. another bonus is getting to use all sorts of different machines, i ran some clausing lathes, a monstrous old monarch lathe-- this thing was GIGANTIC, and one other i forget what it was though- US forge maybe?.. some of them had DROs, so that was nice to get acquainted with as well. i got to run bridgeport vert mill, and also an akron with DRO.
once i got my feet wet i started gobbling up info from text books. not everyone can learn from reading text, if you cannot than learning on your own can be challenging without having someone to teach you.

using the terms "light duty" and "heavy duty" is misleading. removing a lot of material in one pass is heavy duty. on my emco i can do the equivalent of heavy duty aluminum work, i just have remove less material per pass, which means it is slower going. with a big ol BP vert mill you could remove the amount of material in one pass that i did in 3 or more!!! it all comes down to rigidity of the machine. a little dinky machine can only make little dinky cuts. maching steel and harder steel like cro-mo is a lot to ask for most 3-in-1s. tube mitering is not hard on the machine, but you may run into space limitations for fixturing your tubes.

in my opinion machining is all about problem solving and thinking outside the box. if you are good at that, then you might be okay with a 3in1.

here is a shot using my emco to miter a straight blade unicrown fork. i made the fixture and the hole saw arbor. set up differently that fixture also doubles as a chainstay tacking fixture.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4641031796_0aa9efae60.jpg

http://www.shoptask.com/

This is the one I like, though when I was looking at this stuff it was a different machine, and I wasn't thinking frame building. As mentioned in my longer post, The lathes tend to be serious sized and the mills undersized. Even the cheap end like HF's larger machine have their devotees and someone has done a great project on one. Just that generally, down the road one wil outgrow these machines. All machines have limitations These machines will be found to have more than others.

I agree with LI that it's all about thinking your way around and keeping moving. I once used a horizontal boring machine (could be cutting chainstays like a horizontal mill). It used an electric drill on a wooden fixture that tracked horizontally on wooden rails. Very smooth and accurate.

Yeah, I have virtually zero machining experience. I grew up in a sheet metal shop but that quite a bit different. I just started welding a little over 3 yrs ago but I have had some good teachers and I practice quite a bit. I enjoy keeping my frame building business simple and I don't rush any aspect of it, I only build 20-30 frames a year. The interest to learn how to use these machines is greater than the desire to save time or money. Also the ability to turn out some hand made parts to enhance the customization would be nice as well. I have a friend who runs a machine shop here who is gonna teach me some things a couple times a week and a book is already on my nightstand so by next week I figure I will know everything and probably be missing a couple of fingers as well. Lets hope not. That is a sweet little machine in the photo and it looks to be about the perfect size for frame building. One of these days I am gonna build a sweet little shop and one wall is gonna be the designated lathe/mill wall. In the mean time I guess its just the files and the torch and a little help from my friends. A paint booth/carbon fiber facility would look nice right next door to the imaginary shop as well. What brand do you guys run on your frames so that I can be looking out for them?

I don't build for others it's just a hobby for me. I did at one point get interested in the idea of making it a brand, had a great name picked out. Before I knew it, I had shifted focus to what I thought the market would want. So I backed away for that and just stick with my own projects.

I think when i get the carbon fiber facility finished I will try to hire Peterpan1, he seems to know carbon pretty well. Arkansas just got the lottery last year and as soon as I win it Mountain Home is gonna get a carbon fiber facility. Actually i think this is the fiberglass boat capital of the world, theres one on every corner. What do say Peterpan, you interested?

Yeah, you have mentioned you have a good name picked out in a previous thread. I am curious what it is. I promise I won't steel it if you tell me but someone else might. I already have a name and am sticking with it. Come on, give it up, whats the name?

Surely am. I was saying to my wife the other day that if I just had a gallon of West epoxy every month I would be a happy man. Carbon would be just more than I could hope for. I'm sorry about the name. It is that good I just don't see why anyone else hasn't used it. It is a little bike specific, not Amazony or Apply, but I still stand by it (if hiding it qualifies as standing by it). If I ever sort out my disbelief in insurance, I may need it.

Most everything I find in a lathe or milling machine is made oversees and the few American companies I have found all seem to have the larger equipment. What are some domestic companies that make the smaller machines along the lines of home/small shops?