[.RC.]

I have a ZAY7032G mill that I have owned for about 10 years and it is mostly used for drill press purposes as it is a geared head... I have a bridgeport clone mill for general milling

I was wonder what the feasibility is of removing the round column and geared head which I would keep to use for a drill press (attach it to a steel frame) and construct a new direct drive head and column and CNC it all...

Does this sound feasible... I know it would be a lot of work, but I need to keep the geared head for drill press duty but want a small CNC mill as well...

[mwood3]

it depends...are you looking for cost effectiveness or you just need a new challenge?

i do believe a square column machine of this size...ZX45? can be had for about $1700...that being said why not just keep your machine the way it is for heavy duty general work and get something like a G0704 or any of the BF20L machines to convert to CNC...the G0704 is a steal at about $950. remember the bigger the machine the more expensive it will be to cnc...

[.RC.]

Over here you can double those prices for what we pay even though our dollar is nearly parity with the US $..

[pippin88]

With the dollar as it is, importing looks pretty attractive at present.