what do you think of this mill????
 

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G8689

the grizzly mini mill a buddy of mine says he has one for 375 bucks what do you think any good?

Not bad for a cheapie. It will need to be squared up before you can cut anything square. It takes a good bit of work to get those guys running right.

Forget it, the spindle taper is an MT (Morse Taper). All it is good for is drilling and some light milling. Check out the Harbor Freight or Cummins Tools version of the Seig mill, they have an R8 taper spindle.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=44991

http://www.cumminstools.com/browse.cfm/4,1485.htm

One of the down falls to this machine is that the gears in the head are made of plastic and WILL fail in the middle of doing something. There is a lot of info out there on modifying/upgrading this mill. Check out Little Machine Shop for upgrades and parts. http://www.littlemachineshop.com/

Alrigth this is a really stupid Question. And I should be slapped for this. But what all can you do with it? Besides drill a hole....

With milling, the drill bit (or in this case milling bit) makes an up-down motion like a regular drillpress, but the table underneath it can move over the X and Y axis. That way, you can 'drill' sideways, to make a sleeve or something.

I believe that style of mill to actually be more like a drill press on steriods. If you want to buy a machine that'll work harder for you and last,a bit bigger machine with better components will be better. A buddy of mine has a Grizzly mill and lathe in his shop,they work awesome and he kicks out some killer parts. His machines though were both above the 10k mark. It's his living so he needs machines that'll do anything he desires.

The machines with plastic gears in the heads,could you not make your own metal gears for the machine with the machine? I've not seen the gears,it was just a thought that crossed my mind. I know Jerry has made a few gears for people before.

So basically your saying the grizzly stuff is junk?:?: buy Harbor Freight?

Why say ALL of something is junk because one item might not be bullet proof?


I'm not going to speak for him,but I feel that some of the Grizzly stuff is good. The particular machine the thread started out with,is probably not the most durable one out there though. If you look at the other Grizzly machines,they've got better machines with better components.

I'm not saying that they are junk but I will say that you get what you pay for.

All the Mini Mills out there whether they are sold by Harbor, Cummins, Grizzly, Micromark or who ever, they are all made by Seig over in China and they all have the plastic gears in them. There is a site that shows you how to convert the spindle drive over to a belt arrangement. In my opinion this is a much better set up over the gears. The belt helps take up the shock when milling, it will run much smoother and quieter. I will try and find that site on the belt conversion and post a link to it.

Here is a direct link to the belt conversion http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/...v/belt_drv.htm

Here is a link to the main page. Have a look around, there is a lot of information on the Mini Mill. http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Main/mini-mill.htm