Thread: Mill/Drill under $1k, waste of money?

Originally Posted by quentin

For milling anything other than wood, I agree with the other comments - it will be terrible.

But I think it would be suitable for your use case. The rigidity of the column will not be an issue when machining wood,as deflection of the column just will not happen to an extent you would ever see.
First thing I would do, is get a MT2 ER collet setup, and do away with the drill chuck for any milling operations other than drilling.
The feed rate with that low of a RPM will affect your ability to power through a job at full speed, although I doubt you can crank the wheels fast enough to do 3 Meters/min (feasible with 16mm cutter, 25mm stickout, cutting hardwood), let alone the 30 Meters/min achievable with a 30,000RPM spindle.

I've played this game myself, and eventually upgraded and CNC'd my little Chinese mill, and bit the bullet and got a CNC router too. Similar but different use case to yours - I make spearguns for shits and giggles.
+/- 0.1mm is more in line what I'd expect you to be able to machine, even with a sub $1k machine.

Here's a video of cutting a handle with a spindle only capable of 2500RPM. No gouges, visible blemishes etc. Just slow compared to the CNC router doing the same job
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kGgeTm20wE

Sounds a bit like R2D2 is driving that wee mill in the video.

I currently use a router for roughing out and cutting barrel channel. I think a good next step for me would be to make a table set up for the router like @mimms2 suggests. Perhaps with the cunning use of jigs will save a bit of time too.