Cummins Industrial Mini Mill info please

[SnailPowered]

There is a guy on Weapons Guild selling his Cummins Industrial Mini Mill and Grizzly G4000 for $1250. I don't care to get the lathe as I already purchased a Craftsman 12x24 but the mill does interest me. He says that it will need a new vice eventually. It has a little bit of surface rust but doesn't look too bad.

What I am wondering is what is a fair price for this. He did say that he has a ton of tooling but not specifically what and since he is trying to sell the lathe with it I don't know how much tooling is for which.

   

[EdK]

It looks well used and not very well taken care of so I would be a bit leery of buying that. Find out what spindle it has, R8 or MT. Without being able to inspect it for bearing play in the spindle and wear on the lead screws, I think I would pass on it. Just my 2 cents though.

[SnailPowered]

The guy did say that it works well and he uses it a lot. He said that the vice did break and he welded it back together. From everything I can find on them online it is an R8 collet.

Well he said he would want about $575 with a handful of R8 collets and a couple baby wipe boxes of milling bits, keyway cutters, etc. That is more than I was thinking of spending. I think that for both for $1250 it would be a pretty decent deal. Thanks for the response Ed!!

[Highpower]

Just my opinion but unless you can get it really cheap, I would hold out for a RF-30/45 clone of some type. For what you want to do, (80% yes?) you'll be glad you did.

[SnailPowered]

Yeah, mostly 80% lowers (10 and 15 type) and DOM tubing receivers. Want to make a receiver that I can switch barrels on easily using a Savage bolt for the interchangeable bolt head. I'm thinking of having a free floating barrel with a piece of DOM that threads over the receiver and holds down a lever that clicks into the barrel similar to a M2HB BMG set up. I will have to use a go-gauge every time I change barrels to set headspace but I shouldn't need to torque it together or anything.

[dallen]

you don't want that mill for what your wanting to do, yes you could use it but the first time that you do you will say I wish I had a bigger mill. So unless your planing on working on pocket watches, get a bigger mill.

[SnailPowered]

Yeah, I think that if I'm going to struggle with the size of a small mill I may as well use the milling attachment on my 12x24 Craftsman lathe. I was looking at the RF-45 style mills and it looks like they run somewhere around $2K for a brand new 110v version? That definitely seems like the one to get and have it be an actual legitimate upgrade. Shoot, then all I would likely do is get a bigger lathe when I get out of the Army and I'm not moving so often.

[Rickabilly]

As a general rule, if any part of or attachment fitted to a machine tool has been broken and welded back together it's time to look at some other advertisements

especially if you ever want to use it for precision work, It's not that you can't weld things back together, it's more, How badly do you mistreat a vise in order to break it like that? and if a guy is selling up all his gear it might indicate that he's not had much success with it and he's going to buy something altogether better or he has given up either way not a good machine to learn on as it'll just make everything harder.

just my $0.02
Regards
Rick

[EdK]

Yup, trying to learn this hobby on shitt_ I mean poopy equipment is very discouraging for beginners.

Ed

[Rickabilly]

There is nothing worse than trying to learn how to get a finish on a machine that won't allow a good finish to be had. Everything you make looks rough and you just never know if it's you or the tool. It is true that a poor tradesman blames his tools but a non tradesman doesn't yet have the skills to know when his tools are letting him down.

Rick