looks pretty similar to mine:
though, yours is certainly prettier and a lot less banged up
i'm not sure how much experience you have with them, but i know when i got mine i had absolutely none, and it took some education to learn what i could and could not do with it. once you learn the machine you will find that you can do most anything with some planning.
the biggest complaint that i always hear from people is about losing your index if you have to change the head height. while this is a limitation, you can often work around it by thinking ahead and setting your height so that all of your operations can be done within the 6" quill travel, where possible. if not, you do as much as you can at one height and then reset and find your edge/starting point again. an edge finder will easily get you within a few thousandths, and is probably one of the most useful $10 tools in the world for precision hole drilling - i paid $3 for my used starret edge/center finder.
i personally have two other issues that i find far more bothersome than the round column:
after using a knee mill i miss the ability to tilt/rotate the head. with the fixed head you have to find ways of clamping the workpiece at an angle to do those operations as opposed to just clamping square and adjusting the head.
my biggest complaint is the belt drive system. i find myself switching tooling between 1/8" and 1" all the time, and constant belt changes are a real pain. i often run the machine too slow for the smaller tools because i don't want to take the time to change, and that's not the way to do things. i've heard of people using a vfd system to minimize the changes and just alter the motor speed, and that somds like a great idea, but i'm far too cheap to buy one pre-made, and it's out of my range of knowledge currently.
i bought my mill used for a decent price, and if i ever get the chance to upgrade size for a reasonable cost i probably will, and at that point i'll probably learn about a vfd.
but, be certain to enjoy your new purchase. sadly, you'll find it a time sink, because now that you have the ability, you won't be satisfied with the way you used to do things, and you'll want everything made neater and cleaner now.
though, yours is certainly prettier and a lot less banged up
i'm not sure how much experience you have with them, but i know when i got mine i had absolutely none, and it took some education to learn what i could and could not do with it. once you learn the machine you will find that you can do most anything with some planning.
the biggest complaint that i always hear from people is about losing your index if you have to change the head height. while this is a limitation, you can often work around it by thinking ahead and setting your height so that all of your operations can be done within the 6" quill travel, where possible. if not, you do as much as you can at one height and then reset and find your edge/starting point again. an edge finder will easily get you within a few thousandths, and is probably one of the most useful $10 tools in the world for precision hole drilling - i paid $3 for my used starret edge/center finder.
i personally have two other issues that i find far more bothersome than the round column:
after using a knee mill i miss the ability to tilt/rotate the head. with the fixed head you have to find ways of clamping the workpiece at an angle to do those operations as opposed to just clamping square and adjusting the head.
my biggest complaint is the belt drive system. i find myself switching tooling between 1/8" and 1" all the time, and constant belt changes are a real pain. i often run the machine too slow for the smaller tools because i don't want to take the time to change, and that's not the way to do things. i've heard of people using a vfd system to minimize the changes and just alter the motor speed, and that somds like a great idea, but i'm far too cheap to buy one pre-made, and it's out of my range of knowledge currently.
i bought my mill used for a decent price, and if i ever get the chance to upgrade size for a reasonable cost i probably will, and at that point i'll probably learn about a vfd.
but, be certain to enjoy your new purchase. sadly, you'll find it a time sink, because now that you have the ability, you won't be satisfied with the way you used to do things, and you'll want everything made neater and cleaner now.
