Legacy 1200 Ornamental Mill - Questions?

[Tim Rinehart]

Hi all,
I have an opportunity to get a 3 yr old Legacy 1200 Ornamental Mill with about $2K worth of upgrade parts, a nice PC Plunge Router, various bits. Total package cost over $5K, I can have it for $2K, it's from a family friend.

I saw this and saw a video he had and it looked pretty cool with what you could do with spiraling, fluting and various flat ornamental work, as well as embellishment of turned objects (my current woodworking passion).

The gentleman has not used it much at all, and the only thing I see needing attention is some light surface rust on the feed screws, which I "think" shouldn't be too big a deal to clean up.

Seems the opinion on these is that they're not intuitive, take alot of practice...which isn't a big deal in my opinion.

Anything I should be concerned about that others are aware of, and does this sound like a pretty good deal?

I really plan to just tinker around with it, perhaps do some flute/spiral work for furniture projects at home, perhaps do some ornamental work on some of my turnings, i.e vessels and bowls.

Thanks so much for any opinions, I need to decide tomorrow, as we're leaving the area where he is in the next day or so.

[Rusty Eads]

I have a 900 that I bought new about 7 years ago and spent about $1500 on it with a few upgrades. I absolutely love the machine and mines alot smaller than the one you are looking at. I have been able to do things I would never have been able to do any other way. They really are not that hard to learn, I turned my first 2" thick twisted rope column with the first piece I put in the machine. Sounds like a good deal but it is a fairly large investment and the router bits can get expensive also. I use mine on almost every project and even plan some projects just to try something on it, like hollow spirals. The only issue I would be concerned with is that if you don't really get into it, it might be hard to unload it on someone else as there is a very small market for these machines. That being said, you would have lots of fun with it as I know I have

[ed vitanovec]

I bought a lightly used 1000EX 4 years ago for $1800, its about 76" long. The model 1200 is the newer model. Mine is really nice and has several upgrades to it. I don't use it a whole lot, you can do some nice and unique things with this machine. These mills are built really well and all the steel is heavy gauge, the aluminum extrusions are also really nice. The surface rust on the lead screw sounds very minor and I think you should buy it.

Regards!
Ed

[Tim Rinehart]

Rusty/Ed,
Thanks for your feedback. Just out of curiosity, have you had any recent contact with the folks at Legacy (Phantom) to validate how good their current level of support is?

I've read some posts around other sites that didn't sound very good, and especially with regards to replacement parts if needed. Seems like the company may have been a bit stronger and better positioned to support a few years ago than they are now.

I noticed several of their web site links are out of date and have old dates on them...another possible cause for concern.

[Rusty Eads]

The last time I contacted them was about 4
3 1/2 years ago when I moved and lost a piece off of my machine. They were able to send me a replacement part though i did have to buy it from them which I expected. Wish I could be of more help but seeing as I haven't had anything go wrong with the machine (a good sign IMO) I haven't needed to use their customer support

[Tim Rinehart]

Well, I think I've got to have it...I tried it out and it was pretty slick and we quickly got a nice start on a 3 start rope twist. Had to do quite a bit of checking everything for tight and level, as it hasn't been used in a year or so since the gent last moved.
I wish it weren't so darn big...it's gonna eat up the space and then some I recovered when I got rid of a radial arm saw that wasn't being used much.

Oh well, LOML knows she'll hopefully get the bedroom furniture that's been promised since I finished a 'bedroom wing' remodel a couple years ago.

One thing I didn't see on the Legacy site, is their Z axis rig. If anyone has one, I'd be interested to see what it's comprised of if it would make any template work easier.