[Fatamorgana]

Thanks for the valuable input, after alot of consideration and calculations I finally went for sending the slabs to a local company wich gave me a fair price on machining everything flat, including gutter, parallelism, threads etc. for around 1600$, The weight of one slab was near to 300kg wich was 50kg overweight for my mill, also the travels has several issues. I really wanted to do this myself, but there will be other parts later on in the project I can Get my mill into service on. Thanks again!


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[joeavaerage]

Hi Lars,
I understand.

My first mini-mill I was able to make on a Bridgeport clone by using multiple setups for each of the larger parts. It was a challenge to get it accurate. I don't regret doing so.....I learned
so much.

My new build mill (about three years now) when I was getting the axis beds cast I had determined that I could spare no effort to get the axis beds as good as I could possibly make them.
At work here, another business but operating from the same workshop, has a near new Taiwanese knee mill, a little larger than a Bridgeport. Being new its in great condition, little to no
backlash, but its travels are 500mm in X and 210mm in Y. My axis bed are 700mm long and 250mm wide. If I were to use Allan's mill, I would have to slide the part not only only in the
X direction but the Y direction also. I deemed that to be a 'bridge too far'

Like you I decided to have this work done for me. It was eye-wateringly expensive, but also spectacularly good. It cost $6000NZD (about $400USD) to do all three beds, including the Tee Slots
in the X axis..

I did use Allan's mill for many of the smaller parts, and very useful that machine has proven over the years, but sometimes there are jobs which are just too big or too critical to do them yourself.
I had the Tee slots in my fifth axis platter done by a tool and die company simply because ANY imperfection is those T slots was going to result in that imperfection translated into every part I ever make
with that platter. Cost $700NZD, or about 3.5 hours (I guess)....so not cheap, but the result is micrometer perfect.....and that's what I wanted and paid for.

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
there is a typo in my previous post:

It cost $6000NZD (about $400USD) to do all three beds

Should read:
It cost $6000NZD (about $4000USD) to do all three beds

I lost a zero when typing.

Craig