What would you do with this milling machine

[Tom Sweeney]

Last week a guy asked me if I wanted a lathe for free - of course I said yes - site unseen.

I went to take a look at the "lathe" today to see what it was.

It's actually a milling / grinding machine of some sort. I only had a minute to look at it but I snapped a few photos. the tag says its 220 - but it has a very small "phase converter" on it & appears to be wired to a 120 circuit. The manufacture is a Taiwan company called SANCO. They apparantley manufacture huge CNC & milling machines but I couldn't find any like this from a web search.

I'm going to take it anyway & I'm sure I can do all kinds of cool stuff with it - just not yet sure what.

The thing weighs a ton so it will be a bear loading & unloading it.

<p><img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/mill1.jpg">
<p><img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/mill2.jpg">
<p><img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/wood/mill3.jpg">

[Tommy Curtiss]

It looks like a flat grinder I saw some years ago in a machine shop I used to use.They used one to reflatten flat plates when they got warped, if it turns slow enough you might be able to make a sharpener for stuff around the shop???

[Bruce Page]

Well Tom, you can’t beat the price, but it’s unlike any milling machine that I’ve ever seen. It may be a small surface grinder, but it’s hard to tell from the pictures. The column looks pretty stout but there doesn’t appear to be much vertical travel. Put it together a little more and shoot some better pics - we will figure it out!

I didn’t really say everything I said. -- Yogi Berra

[Howard Barlow]

Could be a bedknife grinder.

[Ray Thompson]

I think it is a cutter grinder minus quite a few parts. Whatever it is it looks like it might have a nice x-y table that could be used a number of places

Ray

[Mark Hulette]

Ray-

I thought the same thing about the x-y table, though I'm not sure how you'd rig it for WWing. Interesting procurement at a pretty good price! :cool:

[Mac McAtee]

I think you'll find it called a "surface grinder", in most machine shops.

[Tom Sweeney]

I'll probably be picking it up in the next week & I'll let you know what it is like. There were some other parts to it below the table - but I really only had a minute to check it out.

I had the same thought - worst case scenario & can use the motor & X Y table for something. I was wondering if I could maybe rig it up as an overhead router or something -I didn't really notice how the motor was mounted & if it would work - just a thought.

I'll post when I get it figured out.

[Mac McAtee]

I'd rig it up to sharpen jointer and planer knives. It would be worth that alone.

[Mac McAtee]

It also could be a very basic vertical milling machine that someone has taken the chuck that holds the milling cutters off and put a grinding wheel on. You mentioned some kind of controller on it and that might be a speed control for the motor. When you pick it up ask if there was some kind of chuck mechanism that has been taken off of it.