Re: Outdoor Welding

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:103v8c8$2ed3u$1@dont-email.me...
Space is always a premium.  The mill you showed would probably have been
adequate for 95% - 99% of what I do on a manual mill, but I went with
this one instead.
https://www.grizzly.com/products/south-bend-10-x-54-5-hp-single-phase-mill-with-dro/sb1028f
  It is a beast.
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I would have loved to own a Bridgeport or clone like that, but couldn't justify the cost or space in my garage. The work I've done at home and been paid for barely covered the cost of the moderate sized machines I have, instead they gave me full control of building the projects at work and my ideas at home, the bucket loader, gantry and sawmill etc.
I had the Enco version of that small knee mill in the Mitre model shop. It was an example of the major components well made in a factory and the minor ones in someone's cottage, poorly enough that filing improved them. The Ph.D. electrical engineer who originally ordered it was Swiss, apparently didn't like (or know about) R8 and adapted it to ER which ate up most of the vertical workspace. I was debating the relative disadvantages between it and a mill drill when the Clausing appeared in the want ads and was in my truck that evening, making me $800 lighter and 800# heavier. Its Brown & Sharpe #7 collet size is almost identical to Morse #2, max 1/2", but rarer, so I snapped up all the arbors etc that Wholesale Tool had left.
The Clausing was on the upper floor of an old mill building and had to be completely disassembled to partly hand carry it out. For a basement shop that's an advantage.