play farmer,
Ray is right. Sometimes an older "bigger" piece of equipment is better than the new "cheaper" brand. I live in the metro detroit area, home of most all things manufacturing, etc. Used bridgeports are like weeds around here and go in the $1500 range on up. Problem is you have to be savvy enough to make sure bearings, slides etc are not torn up too bad. I did some side work for a machine shop and for payment they bought me a "nice" gear drive mill. 2hp motor, import brand. It cost around $2000 with some basic tooling. I have a beat up bridgeport that cost less, with powerfeed on the table, that will hold tolerances way closer than this brand new mill. Plus the old bridgeport is a tank, I can hog of huge amounts of metal per pass, the import is no where as heavy duty. BUT, for smaller projects... nylon, brass, aluminum the import works great. If you are going to mainly do smaller work, I would get a new import. benchtop style.
Bigger work, used bridgeport. Precision work, a good used bridgeport $2000 and up typically.w/o powerfeed.Around here, machinery auctions happen almost every weekend. the new small mills you can get 110v, the bigger machines are 220v and some 440v. so keep that in mind, you will spend a lot $500 or so, to convert 440 back with a phase converter. Just my two cents, but get the right tool for what you are doing and you will always be happy. Rick
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