Recommendations on Small CNC Mill and Lathe

[PapaPerk]

Hello,

Anyone have suggestions on a good quality smaller CNC mill and lathe?

Machinery maybe used for making model steam locomotives and other small parts. I do not need anything larger than a small Bridgeport knee mill. For the model parts something smaller maybe preferable.

Any tips?

Thank you!

 

[CalG]

CNCzone.com

 

[jmanatee2]

Depends on how small is small.

I have a 4"x10" lathe from harbor freight. Pretty small but very usable. I have made bushings for my ride on with great accuracy (takes quite a bit of fiddling to get accurate)

I just ordered a 2' x 4' Torchmate CNC Plasma cutter. This is quite a bit bigger (will cut 3/8" plate all day) I have heard great stuff about it but I have not used it yet. Should arrive next Wednesday.

Lathe cost $500
CNC plasma cost $9000

 

[westcliffe01]

For the mill, the smallest cheapest cnc that can actually take a cut is the Tormach www.tormach.com

<$9000 brand new.
Can't really help on the CNC lathe. In most cases it is cheaper to farm turning out unless you have a whole bunch of it to do.

 

[laurencen]

assume most of your lathe parts are small, I have a Haas tm1 in my garage, on many occasions I mount a 3 inch 3 jaw chuck in the spindle, this allows me to make accurate round parts same as a cnc lathe in the mill, the tool I have a dedicated base for but you can hold it in the edge of the vise, have made ball joints, special fastners, gear blanks and bushings, drilling the centeres are a pain but I centerdrill and then use the drill press

 

[Taylortractornut]

I have a good friend that is a hobby machinist. He used to be a full timer but has recently been disabled. He had alot of Summit and Grizzly machines over the the years. He had an 11x26 Grizzly lathe. He did a ballscrew conversion and made his own CNC lathe and Milling machine. He used them a couple years building model cannons. Then sold the machines minus the CNC step motors. Then sold the CNC items as a kit. He also sold some setups to other model builders. THey were just G code machines but later he added later software to them.