If you had 1000 dollars what mini mill would you buy?

[Heavy Metal]

Brian -
I know Steve (IHB) isn't real happy with his Taig - for what he does - but I've been working my little Taig pretty hard and it just keeps on cranking. Just throwing that out there in case you end up making a deal with Steve on his. Granted I'm only doing aluminum and doing pretty small parts. I got a real good deal on mine fully CNC'd w/ Microproto controller and including a HEAVY steel frame work bench and fully enclosed with a nice plexi cabinet and chip chute/tray. For milling my small aluminum parts I really haven't found anything yet where the rigidity of the mill or the motor power was my limit except or the stuff with bigger end mills that I don't do much. Steve mentioned fly cutting being a problem with his and I ended up needing to do some last weekend on a big chunk of aluminum plate. Whole operation went real smooth taking like .01 or .015 on each pass. Real nice finish...ran smooth as butter. Obviously a bigger mill could've hogged through a deeper cut...but, hey if you don't have the money then take extra time. I think having the Taig bolted down to the big steel frame bench is part of the success with mine.

Now...not saying I wouldn't like a bigger mill and I might start looking soon but the Taig has worked out well so far. ****...I've worn a drive belt out making parts with this thing already.

One other note...I also had a MaxNC closed loop servo CNC mill and IMO it was too lightweight for any kind of metal work. Don't want to knock the company or anyone that uses them but I sold mine and kept the Taig.

Guess that's my two cents. Keep in mind I'm relatively new to machining in general.

Joe