Chester century milling machine are they any good?

[cyclops]

Hello all. I am looking to buy a small milling machine for my shed workshop. I have been looking at the chester century machine. The price seems pretty good for the power and the size of the table. But before I buy one I wonder if anyone would let me know how it perfroms.

Also in the documentation for this machine it does not state taper roller bearings, can anyone confirm this.

Also, there is no positive lock on the qill, there seemed no play on the demo model, does this affect the operation when doing heavy work.

Also the variable speed is good but do you get torque at low revs.

Please let me know any thougths or other manchine I should be looking at.


Thanks

Andy

[jasonb]

Don't know where you were looking at the specs but Chesters web site says taper roller bearings and a quill lock.

Also worth looking at Warco, Arc Eurotrade, Engineers Toolroom and RDG are starting to do machines.

Jason

[ettingtonliam]

Andy
If the variable speed control is electronic like on the Chester Conquest lathe, then no, there is very little torque at low speed, and the motor won't like extended periods of low speed running.

Regards
Richard

[cyclops]

Thanks for the reply. I thought as much. I did a little digging around and found that it has some plastic gears in the head. In the demo it was far noisier than a belt drive unit. The taper was not properly attached so there was no way of feeling the torque at lower revs. I am not 100% confident so I think its best to give it a miss then build a bigger shed and go for the warco economy mill drill machine. I have a freind with one and its superb!

[teakfreak]

I had a Warco Economy mill for many years till recently and it was a very robust machine. Like all round column machines, though, you have to be very careful to keep the head tight on the column because if the milling cutter snatches on the work there is an slmighty bag and the whole head swings round. Guess how I found that out!

[cyclops]

Cheers, was your warco mill any good for boring.

[teakfreak]

Sorry for the delay in replying -I've been away. The answer to your question is that I didn't do very much boring, but what little I did worked out OK.