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#53465
david pierce
Participant

    Tom,
    People buy a small bench mill like this, put in a 5/8 diameter end mill, try to hog out a piece of tool steel and wonder why gears break and things begin to slip. It is a great high precision small mill made to take small cutters 1/8, 3/16, 1/4 inch diameter end mills. It does a fine job when used properly. It is not a Bridgeport nor does it claim to be. The reason the plastic gears break is because people try to push the machine past what it was designed to do. You wouldn’t think of putting a piece of 1″ diameter bar stock into your Levin and attempting to peal off a 1/8 inch cut with a .006/rev feed rate. The machine isn’t designed for it. You could easily do this with a 15″ engine lathe but a 15″ engine lathe has a 7 1/2 horsepower motor and weighs over 4500 pounds. If you decide later to modify the Harbor Freight mill the upgrade kits will stil be available. Just get the mill first and then get the accessories as you need them.
    david