Sold my babies to buy a bridgeport

Well I can't believe I sold the carbs off my ford. The winfield's, a matched pair, were expensive and a bitch to find. They were the coolest (rarest) speed equipment I owned to date. The good news is I am finally buying a bridgeport. I got a little nuts with the casting experiments and I think I am really onto a new exciting learning curve. I guess I am more into fabricating than collecting. A bare casting is a friggin doorstop until it's milled to exacting perfection so I need a bridgeport. I guess my point is I am stoked about the mill! I am cleaning up the shop, and making way for it's new home. Now where can I find a "machining for dummies" book?

 

http://metalworking.com/tutorials/ARMY-TC-9-524/toc.pdf

Vergil

 

Thanks alot, that is an amazing amount of information!

 

Congrats........a new weapon in your arsenal, read up, be safe, ask questions.......and you will be only limited to your imagination with the mills potential....Littleman

 

If you have the room, get two Bridgeports. That way you can have one with a bare table for clamping stuff to and another with a vise for holding work. It's a real pain to keep putting a vise on and off the same machine.

WWW.MSCdirect.com is great with quickly shipping anything you need in the way of cutters etc.

Good luck and have fun.

Frank

 

Nice my friend, very nice. I am also currently looking for one. I think you will find you made a wise decision in the end. It's hard to part with the carbs, but do the carbs have potential to make you $$?!!! Nuf said.

--jones--

 

Pretty cool. I picked up a little desktop mill last spring. Vertical mills open a whole new vista. Congrats, you won't regret it!

 

Hey Sawracer , congrats on the new baby , thats the easy part , now comes the time to feed the baby .......new tooling ......costs a fortune , hunt out every avenue , I gotta lot of my stuff at throw out tables at engineering supplies and also garage sales years ago , the hardest part is getting set up but once you've got ....keep it , I've retired now , but when I want to whittle something up , I just go and open the shed and do it ..........
gotta go now and check out the nursing homes to make sure there got room for my all machinery and my blown hemi project.........cheers

 

(and you will be only limited by your imagination with the mills potential)

Aint that the truth...!

If you put the time in, it will open up almost un-real possability's<!-- / message -->

 

I have a new friend.

 

Your a fucking idiot!

Bridgeport mills are plentiful if you know where to look, RARE speed parts are not! I'm an machinist and have been looking for a good bridgeport for years. I've passed on 1/2 horse and 1 horse to get the one I want. Still searching. I'm not about ready to unass some of my rare shit for something I don't even know how to use. Everybody wants to be an instant machininst.

 

Congratulations. If you haven't bought one yet, try to buy a variable speed one. After having v/speed and how much I use it and how tiny speed adjustments make all the difference in the world on some jobs, I wouldn't have one without v/s. Try to buy a real Kurt vise, no chinese, don't scrimp on your vise, it means everything. Good/pro quality clamping system, 123 blocks, and collets also. Then after buying some end mills, face mill, etc., you'll find you need to spin things under it to bore precise ID holes or make perfect radiuses on the outside of things, now you need a rotary table. I couldn't live without the variable speed and a rotary table. Mine is a Yuasa. Good luck.

 

LOL

When i read this I didnt know if he was kidding or not...but he does have a point.

Either way...sometimes you have to give to get. That's how it works in my shop. If I could have it all, I would have more myself.

 

Having a mill and a lathe are about the two best pieces of equipment you can have ( other than a compressor and a good welder ). I use my mill for so many things. As some noted, it is the tooling that can really cost the $$$ - so really keep your eyes open and buy the best you can.

The only problem with a mill is once you've used one for awhile, then you'll want a CNC mill . . . so you can make carve all sorts of curves and things that are near impossible - even with a rotary table.

Some day I'll have a CNC . . but today is not the day!

Dale

 

Make sure to buy good carbide tooling too!

 

Sawracer, Mc Queen makes a excellant point. Buy quality tooling, leave the cheap stuff for someone else. Albrecht chuck, Kurt vise, brand name cutters and dril bits will all pay for the differance in ease of use. I own 2 Bridgeports I bought new and have probably 4 times the value of the mills tied up in tooling.You will also have more friends that need favors then you could imagine. Good luck, good trade. You won't be sorry.

 

MCQUEEN, Nice work! Can I ask how you did the splines??


AS far as selling rare parts to buy someting "common" like a Bridgeport - I personally try to hang onto anything rare like speed parts - it's just to dang hard to get some of that stuff anymore. HOWEVER if I had to pick between staring at some speed part OR unlocking my ability to MAKE my own cool shit - then sorry it really is a no brainer......put the mill right there! It ain't rocket science - anyone can learn to run one. Just be safe - ask questions - seems everyone knows a retired machinist - they are a HUGE source of information.

Mill and a Lathe - some of the BEST money I've spent in my life so far.

I'll second the variable speed option - however with the advent of the elctronics phase converters (specifically the variable speed drives) you can make an old step pulley machine perform like a varaible speed machine. Personally I have a Bridgeport Variable Speed machine - I prefer it over the step pulley machine - however if I was buying any machine tool the DECIDING factor would be the condition of the ways - get the best darned ways you can find. Jumping in an getting a VS Mill with shitty ways is a goofy decision IMHO - you can always upgrade the heads but reconditioning the ways is WAY EXPENSIVE (get it!?)

Have fun with your mill!!!! I wouldn't be without mine for love nor money!

 

Sawracer, one foundryman to another. Ignore Kool Kat, he doesn't pour metal. And apparently has no fucking clue to the reality of casting. You can't learn foundrywork properly unless machining those castings is a closed feedback loop. Cause = Effect. Good luck.

 

Spent most of my professional life "waltzing the Bridgeport". Now with retirement coming my way, ready or not, I have one at home now. Tooling keeps coming my way as more and more shops go to CNC. I don't know how people live without a mill...

 

im working on finding a bridgeport myself. its one of the easier mills to learn (at least that I've used) and there is just so much you can do with it, rare speed parts are in short supply but I'm with you on this decision.

 

If only I had a place for one and knewe how to use it. Good score.
I drool on them at govliquidation.com all the time. There's a nice one coming up soon at altus, OK. Do an advanced search for event 3160, lot 6260.

 

I am well aware of all I need to learn, I am fortunate enough to have some friend's that own em. Not friend's enough to machine all my stuff at their shop, their electricity, their time, their wear and tear on machinery. BUT they have time to teach me some stuff. Someone said "Instant machinist" and I get it. Just like owning a tig doesn't make you a master welder. I certainly know more than a few yahoos that manned up bought a tig machine and learned a thing or two. Speaking of rotary tables, The Enco I found and put in the classifieds, comes with one. I am going to save a little more for the bridgeport but I just posted it as someone might want the enco(it's dirt cheap). Is the egyptian style way of moving it in my shop the way to go? Rolling it on steel bars? It isn't home yet.

 

Sawracer, Sorry to hear about your babies, but, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right? Anyway, here is a link to a really good bulletin board with a specific fourm for Bridgeports.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

Hope it helps.

Mike

Note, if you want to get some matching babies again, let me know, i might have some available.

 

Nothing wrong with rolling it around on steel pipe. I've moved them easily that way - so long as you have a decent floor to roll on.

I moved mine using Roll-a-lifts - I borrowed them from work - also worked good. Nice if you can get your hands on a set - otherwise I wouldn't hesitate to roll it on pipes with a pinch bar. Having at least one guy to move pipe is a necessity (IMHO) having 2 helpers is a nicety. If you GO SLOW and pay attention - it'll be fine.

If your floor is shitty have at LEAST 2 helpers - the more the merrier. My driveway is crap - it was challenging for 3 of us to move mine.

Pivot the head upside down to help lower the Center of Gravity. You can also drop the knee down.

 

If you can, get your hands on a decent pallet jack (should be able to rent one cheap), use that to move your mill around. Works slick, and you'll be able to turn and position more easily than if you roll it around on pipe or round stock. That's how we move em' around at work when we need to get them into a tight area that the fork lift won't fit into.

 

How do you get it off the pallet or does it stay on the pallet?

 

Don't use a pallet, just put the pallet jack underneath the machine. You may have to crib it up a little to get the jack underneath it, but you are going to have to do that anyway if you are going to roll it around on pieces of round stock.

 

theres a bridgeport mill for sale in the toledo ohio area for 2900$ damn good price for one...its on craigslist if any one is interested

 

Best thing you could have done! You'll get years of fun with it. Use it to make you're money back and get those carbs back.

 

The carbs are on ebay quite often, and frankly they look cool , but I can do the same with one stromberg, 2 87's , one 94, two 97's, a weber, a can of carb cleaner and a monkey to ride on the fender spraying intermittently. You get the point.