Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
especially the British-made ones that are often available on the secondhand
market.
MY MILLING MACHINES
The milling machine that can be seen in many of the illustrations in this topic is a Tom
Senior light vertical milling machine. I bought it second-hand when I had just sold my
Chinese milling machine. There was nothing wrong with the Chinese mill - I just did
not want to strip it down and move it if I moved house, as it was so heavy. When I ori-
ginally purchased it, it was delivered to the pavement outside my house and I had to
strip it down by myself and move it into a shed in my garden; as a result I did not get
round to reassembling it for more than a year.
A couple of years later, we moved about a mile up the road and as the workshop
was now a garage I decided to sell the Chinese milling machine and let the buyer strip
it down and take it away, while the Tom Senior milling machine would be wheeled
straight into the garage and be ready for immediate use.
I was planning to buy the same Chinese milling machine as I had before but was
offered the Tom Senior for about the same money and I jumped at it. The Tom Senior
is a more substantial milling machine, and I have not regretted the purchase.
Alterations
My Tom Senior milling machine was three-phase so I had to fit an inverter, but
this was an easy job and only took a couple of hours including the forward/
reverse switch and speed controller.
IalsofittedadigitalreadouttotheXandYaxesatthesametime.Iconsider
a digital readout to be essential on a milling machine X and Y axes, but I can
live without a readout on the Z axis although this could be useful at times.
