Now lets be clear, this is a horrible little heap of Chinese junk. Its about as rigid as wet toast, the gears are plastic and the motor is about as strong as a cordless drill. But it was $500 and I can pick it up and stash it under my workbench when I'm not using it. In short its not as bad as it was cheap.
The upside is that I get super powers.
I've made everything from car parts to pluming fixtures. I no longer even bother going in to the auto parts store or hardware store to be laughed at by the $7/hour flunky as they incredulously ask why I'd even want a part like the one I'm looking for. I just grab some round-stock and whip one up.
I found out after I bought it that this design as been rolling out of china for nearly 20 years under hundreds of different names. There's a giant community built up around modifying this thing (and its cousin the mini-mill) in order to get decent results.
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-inch-x-10-inch-precision-mini...
Now lets be clear, this is a horrible little heap of Chinese junk. Its about as rigid as wet toast, the gears are plastic and the motor is about as strong as a cordless drill. But it was $500 and I can pick it up and stash it under my workbench when I'm not using it. In short its not as bad as it was cheap.
The upside is that I get super powers.
I've made everything from car parts to pluming fixtures. I no longer even bother going in to the auto parts store or hardware store to be laughed at by the $7/hour flunky as they incredulously ask why I'd even want a part like the one I'm looking for. I just grab some round-stock and whip one up.