[KSky]

I'm getting closer ever day to retiring my old Bridgeport 2 Axis CNC Mill in favor of a Tormach 1100 (I would still keep the Bridgeport around for heavy work). Looks like a lot of people are building their own enclosures, if I plan on doing that, is it still worth getting the stand or should I just build my own?

[pickled]

My first Tormach was an 1100 series II and I bought the stand with it as part of the Tormach package. It was quite well built and assembled pretty quickly. If you plan on using flood coolant be prepared to do some clean-up unless you are designing an add on enclosure. When I picked up my 770 a few years later I just fabricated the stand from drops found at my local Alro store. I then mocked up a rough enclosure out of epoxy coated 2x2, 0,24" PET-G shielding in the front and clear welding curtains for side access. It cost me about $380 plus several hours of design and labor, and no it's not pretty at all. I rarely see chips or coolant on the floor, ceiling or back wall by the 770 though. If you go the design your own stand/enclosure route be sure to plan for E-stop access, ability to fully open the control panel door to work on drivers and such, drainage/chip removal and account for things like vise clearance (maybe add extra clearance for when you leave the handle on by accident). They are solid mills and having your Bridgeport available for prepping stock and other operations will be quite handy!

[KSky]

Thanks for the note, confirms what I'm thinking. As far as CNC goes, I'm pretty familiar with the issues. I built a semi-industrial router for my dad's shop, he cuts hardwood shapes and not just a few. He has orders for 500 at a time in various shapes, like the outline of the USA so it has to run for days with a minimum wage operator feeding it.

As far as the coolant religion, I'm of the belief that the more flood the better, wash away everything I don't need. From some stuff on U-Tube it seems like you almost need to build your own stand just to handle that much coolant, but I don't want to re-invent the wheel either. I'll order it w/o the stand and if it turns into a huge PITA I can always order a stand.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the note, confirms what I'm thinking. As far as CNC goes, I'm pretty familiar with the issues. I built a semi-industrial router for my dad's shop, he cuts hardwood shapes and not just a few. He has orders for 500 at a time in various shapes, like the outline of the USA so it has to run for days with a minimum wage operator feeding it.

As far as the coolant religion, I'm of the belief that the more flood the better, wash away everything I don't need. From some stuff on U-Tube it seems like you almost need to build your own stand just to handle that much coolant, but I don't want to re-invent the wheel either. I'll order it w/o the stand and if it turns into a huge PITA I can always order a stand.

[pickled]

I agree with you on the flood though I also have recently come to really appreciate my fogbuster for contouring work and saw cuts. FYI- I didn't have access to a decent metal brake when I fabricated my last stand. That would have made things a lot easier to firm up. I basically had to fixture and weld the sheet metal at angles for the pan drainage and deal with correcting the slight warping after the fact. Since then I picked up a sweet baileigh magnetic brake and will probably lift my machine off the stand in the fall and make a few modifications to the pan. I love watching wood come to life and have milled some smaller items using the 770 and some router tooling. Next year I'll probably slap together a 9x5 plasma/router table to play around with larger designs. Have fun!

[WOTDesigns]

If I were to buy another 1100 I would definitely build my own stand. I designed a stand for my 12x37 lathe that weighs 70% of what the Tormach does and paid a local guy to come weld up a bunch of 2" square tubing. It was cheap.

If I designed a stand for the Tormach it would be similar shape to theirs but I would drain the chips under the machine with several inches of clearance similar to the Haas mini Mills.

I bought a fogbuster after flooding my garage the 8th or 9th time. I had upgraded the pump, supply and return but still the design of the basket on the Tormach leads to rare but annoying clogs. It would run fine if I scooped chips out every hour but every once in a while I would walk in to find 20 gallons of coolant on the floors, broken tool and ruined part because it flooded and eventually starved the pump.

Brian
WOT Designs