Re: What mill to buy
I too have a sherline mill converted to CNC. It's kinda small, but it works fine. I'm used to shallow cuts, so i don't mind the additional time it takes to cut stuff. I bought the sherline because every additional tool is available from the manufacturer. No need to adapt any tooling if i don't want to. Also, out of the box it holds pretty good accuracy. Some tweaks will get it the last little bit. My biggest complaint is the shallow throat. I'll have to buy/make a spacer to fix that. I believe taig has a superior backlash elimination system. I've got 5-6 thousandths so i depend on the software to compensate.
For comparison i also bought a Harbor freight (aka seig) 7x10 lathe after reading glowing reviews on the internet. The thing is heavy and crappy. It took about a week to get set up and I still can't get the tailstock aligned. maybe im doing it wrong or im just bad at it but it makes me so mad that it is unusable out of the box. I plan to swap it for a taig lathe sometime. For now it just takes up space on my work bench. All the "rigidity" it has over other (small) lathes means nothing to me if it can't make concentric features.
If i were to do it all over again i'd either buy the taig mill or if i had more cash to spend i would look at a new turnkey mill like a Tormach or similar. Originally i wanted to pick up an old bridgeport or something, but i've realized i wouldn't know how to pick one out. The older equipment is awesome, i used some of it in college, but i don't have anyone to show me the ropes when it comes to buying one.
I suppose the most important question for the thread starter is what do you plan on making? What kind of materials do you wish to use?
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