[CraneOperator]

Hi,
I'm from the NSW south coast and I'm very keen on getting myself a CNC bench top milling machine. The BF20L has my attention only because of what I've read about it on site such s BF20.com and retail sites such as Red Fox machinery in Melbourne. I want to be able mill one off engine parts (Ford Windsor V8's are my flavour) so the size of the 20 seems ok. I need advice from the bottom up pretty much. Seems from Red Fox that the bottom line is about $5K for the mill and CNC kit.
Does that sound ok?
Cheers

Edit: To put a little more detail to my question; what's the next step up from a BF20 in terms of machine envelope, and can anyone point me in the right direction for CNCing bigger mills like the Hafco range?

[speed_racer]

Hi Mate,

I hope you didnt buy from redfox. I spoke to him about coming to have a look at one, made the 30min trip down to see him just after lunch and he wasnt there. So then I spoke to the girl from the other company who he co-habits with and she allowed me in to the showroom which he didn't have a BF20L in there after all that.

He called me later and I said, well if I dont buy through paypal or ebay and pay cash would you do a bit cheaper? his reply was its actually going up in price in a couple of weeks. So I said Ok if thats the case, if I want it ill buy through ebay..

I ended up buying from Ausino Engineering in Coburg, VIC for $1600 cash. ($1730 was redfox price) But both of them come with a MT2 taper. If you go to Hare & Forbes, for $1650 you can buy one that comes with a MT3 (more common) taper. I thought it was just a misprint but they actually come with MT3's. spewing..

The CNC kit sell for $3000. $1k for ballscrews, $1k for motors and pulley kit, $1k for controller.

Instead of that, I went ballscrew CNC conversion kit for G0704 for $580USD. Plus Nema34 3axis kit $500aud ebay, and mach3

I dotn see the benefit of buying the optimum cnc kit. Not when they dont package it with the machine at a better rate. Plus I heard the pulley system wears and provides a lot of backlash quickly. Kinda makes the ballscrews pointless.

[elmerfud]

BF20 is too small for a ford V8 engine, even a bridgeport is too small. You'll need a 'huron' style mill to work on V8 blocks.
You might get the heads on a RF45 benchtop, BF20 lacks that extra 4 inches of table.

Benchtop mills are the perfect size for 4 cylinder motorcycle engines, not a bad way to travel if you ask me.