machine tools - milling machines and drill presses

[JGrainger]

Hello,

I'm gradually accepting that I may not be able to keep all of my machine tools at this house. I'm going to be selling one thing once it's out of storage, and there's also a Deckel FP1 in storage, with some accessories such as the vertical and high speed heads, indexing head, and offsetting tool for milling punch profiles - to make punches for stuff like stamping out camera shutter parts, or the chiming parts behind the dial on a clock.. I fancy keeping that due to the stuff it could be used to make. It would have been handy for making the overhead drive for the bench lathe but a 4-jaw allowed me to do it slower. I'm aware that a universal milling machine is not the most necessary tool in horology and am not really sure what horological tasks really benefit from them - I have mostly used it for other types of projects / making bits of tooling.

I've got a vintage bench lathe slightly bigger than a Schaublin, with chase threading, which can be set up for gear cutting or some light-duty milling of small stuff. There's also a low capacity bench mounting 3/8" drill press.

 

Realistically besides thinning the herd, I'd also like space for another bit of equipment in future. I'm toying with the idea of selling my drill press and transferring drilling jobs to the Deckel.. but a small drill press is a handy thing to have for many general purpose jobs which don't fall into the category of horological or metalworking, sort of the least impressive but most go-to.. Meanwhile the Deckel has always been the least used (prior to going into storage) but is really useful when it is needed.

 

Has anyone else had a similar dilemma, how did you solved it? - with industrial castors? does anyone have thoughts on drill presses and milling machines?

 

Thank you,

[nickelsilver]

I had a well tooled Deckrl FP1 once, and regret selling it constantly. Probably the best mill in its size ever made. In your shoes I'd ditch the drill press and keep the Deckel.

[jdm]

4 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

I had a well tooled Deckrl FP1 once, and regret selling it constantly. Probably the best mill in its size ever made. In your shoes I'd ditch the drill press and keep the Deckel.

I will look up a Deckel mill. Have you ever seen Wabeco (Germany) machines? Their mill is also available with linear guides. 

[JGrainger]

Nickelsilver, I specifically found an FP1 for that reason.. though a standalone drill press is handy.. shall probably get rid of the drill.

 

JDM, I wouldn't swap it for a different type of machine.. it's small enough to just wheel through a normal doorway when the table handwheels are removed, and maybe 5' tall without a vertical head, yet rigid.

 

There are some industrial duty swiveling castors which can be lowered onto inbuilt feet, I wonder if anyone here has used those to make the most of limited space.

[nickelsilver]

On 5/8/2020 at 1:24 PM, jdm said:

I will look up a Deckel mill. Have you ever seen Wabeco (Germany) machines? Their mill is also available with linear guides. 

I've seen the Wabeco stuff, not in person but in pics and vids. It is decidedly not industrial level and more hobby oriented, but that's not to say it isn't useful especially in a more hobby type situation. The Deckel FP1 is very much industrial level, built to clock up 10s of thousands of hours of hard use. The basic machine minus table is about 500kg, yet its footprint is surprisingly small. It will push a 50mm face mill through steel without struggling, but could be setup to cut watch pinions with similar ease.