Ah, the “Meat and Potatoes” of metal removal — the used milling machine.
Our used milling machine inventory is many and widely varied in capability. If you have a special need production part, chances are you’ll find a milling machine in this category that will fill the bill.
Let’s just get right to the facts. Where would we be if someone had never invented the modern milling machine? Everything you can see from your vantage point disappears, just like that. There are very few devices with more than three moving parts that haven’t had at least one of those parts milled. Milling machines — even used milling machines — offer so much potential to improve productivity, if for no other reason than their total flexibility. In the hands of a seasoned operator, a five horse knee mill has a wide array of capabilities, like 5-sided milling without having to re-fixture the part. Drilling, plunge milling, threading (both inside and outside), literally powering any metal cutting tool that goes around in a circle. Everything said up to this point is with a vertical milling machine in mind, what about a horizontal milling machine, what can that type of machinery do?
It’s got to be a tossup between the lathe and the mill as to which machine tool has more importance in today’s modern production facilities. Both machines have been evolved to a high pinnacle of productivity. Many tend to lean towards the mill because of the incredible number of variations the mill has progressed into. From massive boring mills down to a little table top variety you could use to make jewelry, the milling machine has certainly come of age. At Bud's Machine Tools, milling machines seem to be a constant stream of activity, either coming in, or going out — there’s always a milling machine sitting around the shipping dock. Where a used milling machine for sale is concerned, our selection at any one time can be described as diversified, varied, and at times a bit unusual. At any one given time there are dozens of used milling machines ready for delivery and at other times maybe not so much. We will frequently take in what all involved know is not really a trade-in, but rather a request to move out an older machine to make room for the new. Put another way, we’ll buy your new machine if you will take this old one away. Not so long ago, we accepted a 1945 DoAll band saw for trade in that looked like the head of a saw put on a steel coffee table! We contacted the regional sales person for DoAll when we first got it in, thinking the machine may be worth more because of its age and scarcity. Yeah right — DoAll got back to us eventually, with the response that they probably still have a thousand of these saws active in the field.
In the case of used milling machines, about all you have to get right when selecting a mill for a specific job is:
The beautiful thing of this scenario is we were specifying a mill for a specific job — and that’s all good — but once the job is done for that release of parts, you still have a milling machine sitting there waiting for more work to do. This a machine that has all these capabilities: picture a “universal knee mill” like a Bridgeport mill, just sitting there waiting for something to do. The next problem your shop is going to endure is how to up the scheduling for this mill just to keep it busy. The bigger universal knee mills have 5 horse power drives that will usually provide as much as 2,000 r.p.m., which is fast enough to run a 1/16 drill bit.
Let’s say you have a medium-sized manufacturing facility where you make your own parts and are blessed with a competent maintenance staff (or person). You're perfectly happy going along every day doing your thing, and then one day, there is a loud bang and one of your machines goes down. Son of a gun, you got an output shaft that is now in two pieces and no back up part in house. You know how this story goes, right? Can’t find the shaft any closer than three working days away. Remember how this story started — the part about a competent maintenance staff or person? Well, hello, super good maintenance engineer! He comes to the rescue by making a close enough shaft out of softer material than the rest of gear set which gets them through until the two new shafts arrive at their facility. So there’s that, parts being cut within a matter of minutes of being needed — that capability is HUGE in the production environment. One of our salesmen related the following: "I did a little 'thumbnail' survey while I was at a show in Texas sometime before oil took its fall. (For those of you whom my not be familiar with the term, 'thumbnail survey' is simply an informal, generally question-and-answer personal survey of as many folks as you want to include that you conduct yourself.) "So I’m after the topic 'What is the Future of Manual Machines?' I got to ask a fair number of folks in the three days I was there, what they thought, and was quite surprised by their replies. The replies I got basically fell into two categories: repair [like the scenario we described above], and another one I hadn’t even considered, prototypes. "The gist of the discussion of the people who had an opinion was that there will continue to be a need for manual machines. Occasionally a programmer will forget to put in an O-ring groove so that rerun goes to the used milling machine rather than back to the CNC milling machine for repair. I had more than one person tell me they could have a part completed from raw material before a CNC programmer could write the program."
Check out our inventory of used vertical mills. At any given time we will have all the leading machine brands in stock -- Haas, Dimco, Cincinnati, Kent. These used vertical mills are an exceptional value. Vertical mills can handle heavy-duty metal cutting jobs with accuracy and reliability. Vertical mills also make effective use of floor-space. Several of our used mills come complete with CNC machine controls and workspace enclosures. Give our sales staff a call and we'll help you find the right machine for your milling operation.
The used vertical milling machine for sale is a “diamond in the rough” for the right application. Wow, who would have thought that someone would design a mill that would rather go up and down instead of back and forth. With the right kind of fixturing a vertical milling machine can be a world beater on certain jobs.
You have to go back quite a long time ago to get to the roots of the modern day milling machines. The design of the vertical mill was proved out once again right about the time of a World War (boy, that’s a good reason to up your productivity, if there ever was a good reason). Development actually began in 1936 and was primarily designed by a fellow by the name of Rudolph Bannow who just happened to work for — you guessed it — the Bridgeport Milling Machine Company. Rudy, as he was affectionately referred to, needed nearly four years of development before he could present his version of the vertical mill to the world. Clausing, a competitor to Bridgeport from England, was also perfecting their version of a vertical milling machine, and presented their machine to the market right at war's end.
You know, if you think about it, and we lived in a world where everyone was classified as some kind of a machine tool, Bud's Machine Tools could very well be a vertical milling machine (and even a CNC vertical milling machine) in that environment. This analogy may seem like a bit of a stretch, but if you consider the inherent attributes of a vertical milling machine against those of Bud's Machine Tools you begin to see what is probably a design that has the proper goal in mind. Consider this: both entities have a broad and heavy base, both have built-in strength beyond what is necessary. Both have a large work surface which allows for flexibility as well as brute strength where it counts. In the Salt Lake Valley there is no other choice, no other machinery dealer for used or new equipment has the experience that we do. For many decades the family of Bryan "Bud" Jorgenson has been doing the same thing over and over, and that is service metalworking customers at a level they have never experienced from their other suppliers. Because of our extensive network of relationships built up over the years, if we don’t have the exact used machine you want, we will source one for you. If your budget might allow, we will discuss the potential of placing a new machine on your floor with special financing, resulting in very manageable monthly payments. Among the sales service we provide, we also place heavy emphasis on servicing our customers after the install and training.
If you need a machine tool (and especially if you are located in the Intermountain West), you need to know Bud's Machine Tools. Give us a call sometime soon. We will set up an appointment with you to tour our facilities and see what we look like. There is a whole lot more to us than our considerable Internet presence and brick and mortar facilities — there are also our people, here to do it right the first time.
A horizontal milling machine cuts into the material from a horizontal axis instead of dropping down from the vertical axis. Using a horizontal mill, you can make deeper cuts and remove material faster than with a vertical style machine. These mills lend themselves to applications that have long or heavy work pieces. Many of the horizontal mills are built with a rotary table so that you can mill at a different angles. Our used milling machines come with and without universal tables. We carry an expansive stock of all kinds of used mills, horizontal, vertical and other specialty mills. Check out our current selection of used horizontal mills below (and if we don't have the right mill in stock, we can likely track down the right machine for you in short notice, so please give us a call).
Let’s see, as machine tools go, the definition of a single type of machine tool couldn’t be more confusing as the definition of the “used horizontal milling machine.” Even in the case of the simple “used Bridgeport milling machine,” many people are a bit unclear as to what that particular mill really is! To further complicate all of that, you have terminology that varies from region to region. There are three or four popular terms just for the Used Bridgeport Mill itself. Ready for this? There is no such thing as a “Bridgeport” style of horizontal milling machine. Bridgeport is the name of the company that has supplied many “Knee” mills sold over the last 50 years or so. People just get used to a term or name, and over time it becomes a definition because of the longevity of the machines that have been sold over the years. When asked to define the horizontal mill, one of our salesmen said this: "Wanna have some fun, just off the top of my head (no cheating) here are the actual terms I can come up with for the definition of a Horizontal Milling Machine: Anybody ever heard of the term 'floor mill'? how about 'bed mill' or maybe a 'gantry mill' or 'tool mill' — of course you could always call it a 'universal milling machine.' See what I mean? And all of these terms I just came up with off the top of my head. Never bothered to mention 'Vertical Mill' because we are talking about horizontal milling machines, but how about a vertical and horizontal milling machine combined within the same machine?"
Prior to the availability of a horizontal mill, companies would utilize the practice of what has been described as “rotary filing.” We're afraid it was as tough to do as it sounds. The process was slow, limited in what shapes could be worked and the files had to be cleaned constantly. To complicate the metal removal even more, this process was carried out on a rudimentary lathe of the day. Something had to be done so as to make milling a piece part available to everyone. Shall we go back in time, to a simpler time, and look into the evolution of the modern Horizontal Milling Machine? Why not, the actual accurate history of the first horizontal milling machine was in some doubt from the early days of World War I (from about 1916) up to 1966. The first historian to make the distinction as to who invented the first horizontal milling machines name was Joseph Roe, a noted machine tool historian of his era. It was Mr. Roe’s contention that the Eli Whitney Company — and, in fact, Mr. Eli Whitney himself — were the inventors of the first production Horizontal Milling Machine. While this development was going on, The Eli Whitney Company was busy tooling up to make rifles for the US Army, in preparation for the US involvement in World War I. At about war's end, circa 1918, the Whitney machine was ready for mass production. Roe considered the Whitney Horizontal Milling Machine the very first machine created and in fact the oldest Horizontal Milling Machine currently in existence! Other historians make mention of many other companies working on production models, such as the Thomas Blanchard company, who would go on to invent and market some of the best grinding machines currently available today.
Your best source for good used horizontal mills is Bud's Machine Tools of course. Depending upon our inventory at any given time, we could have any type of horizontal mill imaginable. From a desktop CNC mill to a small milling machine to a whopping bed mill or horizontal boring machine we have seen them all. Our used milling machines for sale have all been checked out for operational capabilities and most all of our used mills come directly to us from their production environments. At any given time, Bud's Machine Tools can also place a brand new milling machine into a customer’s facility, if that is the customer's wish. If the budget does not allow the buying of a new horizontal milling machine, and we do not have the exact machine on hand, we will go to the market place and source the exact mill of our customer’s preference. Once a customer decides to partner with Bud's Machine Tools, the service doesn’t stop at the sale. We have a fully staffed service department who can install optional functions on a used mill, service that used horizontal milling machine, even install the mill if our customers require it. In addition to the machine and its requirements we also can tool up that very mill with any type of tooling our customers request. Need a precision vise for that mill? We have you covered. Want an index able to insert a milling cutter with 5 teeth? We can do that. You have to run coolant on your new used horizontal milling machine? We know the stuff that works the best and can deliver a couple of 5 gallon jugs right with the machine if necessary.
Bryan "Bud" Jorgenson's family has been selling mills and other metalworking machines throughout the Intermountain West and beyond for decades. Bryan's dad, Roger Jorgenson, made customer service his motto, and now with the next generation we are doing our best to carry on the tradition. Putting the customer first is not just a bunch of lip service — we mean what we say, and we do what we say. Our service engineers are capable of everything our customer can possibly want, because we have done it all over the years. When it comes to customer service we take a back seat to no one.
What was that old saying your daddy always used to say — "If you have too much, you’re okay. If you don’t have enough, you’re in trouble"? (Or something like that.) Here’s the point — large boring mills, when properly implemented, could or should be running more than one part at time on their massive table. Let’s say you had a milling job that needs to be performed on a multitude of smaller pieces. Why wouldn’t a shop load up that table with as many parts as they can process at one time, and do them on the boring mill? We have not even touched what these horizontal boring mills can accomplish on the larger parts that are too big for any other machine on the floor. If you make this kind of investment, wouldn’t you want to keep this machine as busy as possible?
Horizontal boring machines, such as the Giddings & Lewis 350T we had recently in stock, were created to machine large castings or parts made from solid pieces of metal stock. This size boring mill is very popular in certain parts of the country where machining larger castings are an everyday necessity. The transportation industries would need a machine like a horizontal milling machine to bore straight line components within the reach of this massive machine's travel. Could you use the capability to line bore a given hole size over ten feet long? Can you heavy mill with this machine? You bet you can, with a 5-inch spindle and 30-40 horse power directed to the spindle via gear drive, the chips are likely to end up in the aisle. It’s been said that horizontal boring mills of this size can’t easily be worn out, since they weigh in at somewhere around 30,000 pounds of cast iron and steel with massive hardened and ground table ways. G & L boring mills, as well as those made by Summit, Kearney and Trecker, SMC and others, all exhibit this basic tendency of being what many people would refer to as “being overbuilt.” These used boring mills come from an era when heavily made machines ruled the day. The tendency of machine builders some years ago was to simply over build the piece of equipment since statistical analysis and other forms of computer aided design had not yet been implemented.
Since the early days, mostly due to our customers requesting that we provide them with equipment we didn’t handle at that time, Bud's Machine Tools began to look outside the realm of used fabrication machines. What our customers wanted was to be able to put their trust in Bud's Machine Tools to provide them with new and used chip making machines. Because of the experience they gained related to the support and application of fabrication equipment, our customers felt more confident that they would rather purchase a chip making machine from Bud's Machine Tools. Since our customer base has grown, so has our portfolio of used machines that make chips. In the early days we offered a few pedestal-style drill presses, a couple of bench-type lathes and a simple vertical milling machine. As time went on, our offerings of used and new metal cutting machines expanded greatly. Today, Bud's Machine Tools stocks and sells a considerable range of used chip machines. We still sell those drill presses and bench lathes and a small mill here and there, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Currently Bud's supplies all types of drill presses, numerous types of vertical milling machines (from the typical vertical knee mill to huge horizontal CNC boring mills) as well as large capacity floor mills. We supply many types of horizontal lathes both manual as well as CNC, such as engine lathes, big bore oil field lathes, mechanics lathes, tool room lathes, and even watchmaker’s lathes! And we offer both new and used machines.
The company's name is Bud's Machine Tools and is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. We've been here awhile doing the same thing over and over — that is, treating our customers with the utmost respect and making an honest effort to help our them out every way we can. Today we are happy to report that Bud's Machine Tools enjoys many continuing relationships with customers that have been with us since the early days, oh so many years ago. Why? Because Bud's Machine Tools puts the customer first, each and every time.
