Harbor Freight Milling Machine.. still available?

[mattygee]

Was looking at HF website today.. it appears they do not currently have their round column benchtop mill for sale.. anyone have any insight on this..? Permanently discontinued or just temporary hiatus?

Matt

 

[crguy]

Consider yourself lucky if they are no longer available.

 

[rsanter]

It was the same thing offered under several names including grizzly.
Also those come up,used on a regular basis depending on where you,are

 

[86turbodsl]

For what those things cost, you can probably find a small real mill in your area. Used of course.

 

[dogdog]

I think they are all rebrand of that Rong Fu (Taiwanese brand), I remember them having a oops pricing mistake selling for $695 or something at the beginning rise of the COO bandwagon (2014 or something), kick my self for not buying it. Now $1800...

https://www.harborfreight.com/verti...MI3eyj5fa37QIVSVtyCh2FfgojEAQYAyABEgJCx_D_BwE

Yea 2014 oops sale online for about 3 days...

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=257314&highlight=round+column

 

[dogdog]

Consider yourself lucky if they are no longer available.

why ? is it because it is a round column?

 

[R-mm]

For what it’s worth it seems like every machine out of China is on back order right now. Little machine shop Precision Matthews and grizzly show back order on many of their machines. I’ve recently been shopping and ended up buying on craigslist. I don’t know if harbor freight simply delete some thing when they don’t know its arrival date. A lot of the vendors I mentioned above keep on pushing back their estimated dates

 

[mattygee]

For what it’s worth it seems like every machine out of China is on back order right now. Little machine shop Precision Matthews and grizzly show back order on many of their machines. I’ve recently been shopping and ended up buying on craigslist. I don’t know if harbor freight simply delete some thing when they don’t know its arrival date. A lot of the vendors I mentioned above keep on pushing back their estimated dates

That seems like the most likely scenario and what I was thinking also.

 

[bushmechanic]

What would be considered a good, cheap, benchtop milling machine?

Let's say I wanted to machine ribs into a piece of aluminum, or create a largely simple shape; or just a machine that will do a good job one straight line at a time.

If a used model would be the most appropriate, I'd like to know what to look for. I need to get some things done that are not time efficient if farmed out at the moment.

It's simple stuff.

 

[Zmann]

I have had the HF RF30 clone for 20 years
it has always been a decent machine and for the price it was that or nothing
I have never been sorry i bought it

 

[gearhead1]

I think they are discontinued, haven’t seen them for years on HF. My first thought would be to find a used full size milling machine.

For a new smaller one, try grizzly or precision matthews or find a Rong fu distributor.

https://www.grizzly.com/milling-machines

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/product-category/millingmachines/benchmills

Rong fu machines are made in Taiwan (not China).
https://www.rongfu.com/category-milling-drilling-machine.html

https://www.buymachinetools.com/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Rong-F...632499?hash=item523b905333:g:UP0AAOSwfqRe2~AF



Boston Craigslist has a Bridgeport for $1500.

https://boston.craigslist.org/nwb/bfs/d/wilmington-bridgeport-milling-machine/7229148101.html

 

[gearhead1]

Another one.
https://providence.craigslist.org/tls/d/providence-1962-bridgeport-head-milling/7234232394.html

 

[bushmechanic]

This is what Harbor Freight pits it up against as competition:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200322815_200322815

I'm sure it comes from the "factory next door", but still, it's different in a number of ways. Is it more or less precise or convenient? I've no idea. It almost looks like the Rong Fu unit.

It's becoming apparent that something similar could be very useful in my near future; mainly for shaping aluminum.

 

[dogdog]

............

Rong fu machines are made in Taiwan (not China).[/B]
https://www.rongfu.com/category-milling-drilling-machine.html
..............]

LMFAO... with this crowd, everything is China. Doesn't matter.

 

[jmarkwolf]

I have had the HF RF30 clone for 20 years
it has always been a decent machine and for the price it was that or nothing
I have never been sorry i bought it

I had one also, for 15 years. Loved it, and learned a lot. Eventually sold it for what I paid and bought a used Bridgeport.

Still look back with fondness on that machine.

 

[matt_i]

My free advice is to buy a milling machine with a Z-way.

Old school would be a Clausing 8520. But those are hard to find and are limited by the small quill - MT2 drawbar.

Grizziily and maybe Precision Matthews have the same "3/4 Bridgeport" size with a z-way and now R8 collets and that's where I would advise trying to go.

I find myself cranking the table to 2 generic heights, up close to the head for milling and then dropping several ~6" inches back down to accommodate the drill chuck and the length of the drill bit.

In the round column you adjust the head and you lose your (X,Y) orientation in the (R, Theta) transition because you can't hold Theta constant. The Z-way solves this problem.

 

[Aaron_W]

What would be considered a good, cheap, benchtop milling machine?

Let's say I wanted to machine ribs into a piece of aluminum, or create a largely simple shape; or just a machine that will do a good job one straight line at a time.

If a used model would be the most appropriate, I'd like to know what to look for. I need to get some things done that are not time efficient if farmed out at the moment.

It's simple stuff.

These RF-31 clones are capable small mills, they get a lot of grief because they have a round column so you have to indicate the head anytime you change the head height. On a square column type mill, you don't have this issue because the head is fixed on a track while moving up and down. Mostly this is just an inconvenience, the mills are capable of good work with a few extra steps.

Now for the price of new (roughly $2000 depending on brand) I think there are a lot of better choices, but used with a little patience you can often find these for less than $1000 and at that price they can be a good deal.

If buying a new mill in the around $2000 price range and general size of the RF31 you could look at Precision Matthews PM25, PM727 or PM30. Grizzly has some contenders as well, with the G0704 and G0795.

For used machines a similar $1500-2500 budget, depending on location can get you into a number of small knee mills, Clausing 8520, Rockwell 21-100, Millrite etc, and is the lower end for not trashed Bridgeport mills if you have the space.

 

[FlaGman]

I ordered one of the HF mini milling machines last May when they were on sale for $200 off, so it was $499 + $22 shipping. I also picked up the 7 x 12 mini lathe at the same time for $499.

I received the lathe quickly, but the mill took several months. I needed smaller machines for my space constraints and I am pretty happy with these, at least considering the price.