# Mill drill questions



## mgbrv8 (Jul 11, 2011)

I have a central machinery style mill drill like the one pictured. I was wondering if there are any good websites that show mods/upgrades or any suggestions on this model. Also any points of weakness I need to attend to. I have remachined the acme lead nuts and I am stiffening the column and closing tolerances where ever I can. Any advice would be greatly appreciated


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## Omnimill (Jul 12, 2011)

I don't have any links but there's lots of stuff on the net about mods for Mill Drills. I've seen a few pages on attempts to improve the lack of registration when the head is moved and also a variable speed drive from a Moped! Start googling, I'm sure you'll find some good stuff, here's one I just found: http://mkctools.com/jetmilldrillmods.htm

Vic.


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## Rayanth (Jul 12, 2011)

To the best of my knowledge, Central Machinery is the name HarborFreight imports the Sieg lines under. You might look through the Sieg website, find if they have the same model, and look for your information under the Sieg model number- you are more likely to find good info that way.
- Ryan


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## Florian (Jul 12, 2011)

Hey

You can check whether the column is a solid bar or not. I know that on similar Mills sold in europe, the column consists of have a thick-walled tube. If it is not, then you can exchange it and this would improve the rigidity of the head quite much. 

Cheers Florian


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## Omnimill (Jul 12, 2011)

Another option I've seen somewhere is to fill the void with a mixture of Epoxy/Gravel.


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## ozzie46 (Jul 12, 2011)

That's known as the Harbor Freight "Big Red". There is a Yahoo Gruop dedicated to it. (See Link) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/drillmill/

 I have one and it will do an adequate job. I have not had any problem with column rigidity. I know that the ones sold in Europe seem to have a thinner column and there have been problems there.

 I refer to it as a drill press on steroids.   It will do adequate milling, but in MHO a square column mill would be better and I plan to upgrade as soon as I can.

 I did a "fine down feed"mod to mine. The info is on the site listed above.

 Do a Google search for Big Red Drill/Mill and you should get several hits.

 Hope this helps 


Ron


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## BillTodd (Jul 12, 2011)

Here are a list of mods I've done to my RF30

http://billtodd.dyndns.org/drillmill


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