I got my Enco mill home this week. I was kind of surprised at the size of this mill when I arrived to pick it up. I stopped at Harbor freight and picked myself up a nice new 2 ton engine lift just to be able to move this thing around once home. So far I have played with it only a little with the supplied worn out end mills they gave me. I did check to see if there was any run-out on the spindle and I was surprised to find that there is literately no run-out. The vice I got with the mill is HUGE, Its 6" across and I have not been able to find any markings on it anywhere to know what brand it is. I do not think this was a vise they used on this machine as it was absolutely nasty with sticky caked on gunk with aluminum chips all in it. I think the PO said he has the machine shop (part of his company) get together the vice and various other things to get me started. Anyhow I have made some chips and did some playing with the DRO. I am going to add a Z DRO while learning some basic manual milling and hopefully i will become fluent enough to make all the parts for the CNC conversion in short time. I still need to order some basic Milling tooling and have been working on making a list of what all to order first.
Here is a short clip of the Indicator on the spindle. That little ticking sound is the indicator hitting what seems to be a deep scratch inside the spindle, I honestly do not know what it is other than you can feel it with your figure. Whatever the case it seems that this spindle is running nice and true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_DLu7yhycw
Kurt, Im looking forward to more updates. You could say its motivating to see your mill coming together.