Thread: Bridgeport milling machines

Hi
Are the classic series 1 Bridgeport milling machines as good as their reputation suggests?

I don’t own one, have never used one, probably will never buy one . Anyone here have much experience using them ……….. mike

The bridgeports have a well earned reputation I think. While I was working in the trade I used many milling machines, including bridgeports and copies, as well as different styles of mills. The copies are mostly just that, copies, no new or interesting developments and most made to be cheaper and so not as good in overall finish and sometimes function and longevity. Perhaps some of that has to do with the attitude of the operators?
I have a bridgeport with a DRO and it is good when using smaller cutters. For serious work I prefer the Cincinatti #2, even without a DRO. They are both very worn. It all depends on the job and rapid traverse on the feed scares a lot of people. I love it!!

As mentioned it all depends on the application...

Bridgeports are classed as floppy and non-rigid because people use them for work they were never designed to do... Of course it did not help when later on they put bigger tables on bridgeports, so bigger workpieces could be fitted to them...

I think they are great machines, and if I was to ever be restricted to one milling machine, I would choose a turret mill, but a heavier design then the bridgeport series 1..

With everything though accessories, accessories, accessories, really make a machine...

Originally Posted by .RC.

I think they are great machines, and if I was to ever be restricted to one milling machine, I would choose a turret mill, but a heavier design then the bridgeport series 1

I wouldn't and I own one...

PDW

hi. what wou;ld yow choose. pdw?

Originally Posted by azzrock

hi. what wou;ld yow choose. pdw?

A Deckel FP4 with all the accessories.

Winning Lotto is proving to be a challenge though.

PDW

id get 2 of them

The whole question is based on an unstated premise anyway. No mill can be said to be fit for its purpose until the purpose is stated.

Do you want to run a 12" TCT face cutter? A B/port is not for you.

Do you want to run a 1mm carbide end mill at 12000 rpm? A B/port is not for you. An FP1 or Aciera may well be.

So it all depends on the application. Someone I know was a bit disappointed in the finish he was getting running a 16mm end mill on his Aciera - I thought his DOC was a bit much for the rigidity of the machine. OTOH for anything inside a shoe box, using high speed head and appropriate cutters, it'd be very hard to find a better machine than that one.

A big horizontal mill is great but the massively rigid vertical heads usually have no quill and almost always are way too slow if you want to drill a 1.5mm hole - leaving aside Z axis issues.

If I could only have 1 mill, it'd probably be something like the Kondia, Lagun or similar. ISO 40 head, fat quill, massive castings, decent speed range. But that's me. I see RC is in the same situation - 5 HP 40 taper head mounted onto a rigid horizontal mill body. Nice - power feeds on all 3 axes (not wimpy servo feeds) plus a big head and reasonable Z space. Can't swivel the head around the column is all that's missing compared to a B/port and I've rarely done that (handy sometimes for extending effective X axis travel though).

The Series 1 B/ports are OK machines provided you work inside their limits of rigidity and tool holding. The R8 taper doesn't have much going for it frankly but tooling is plentiful & cheap. I've had my B/port for over 20 years now and it's done a lot of work, probably my 'go to' machine for general use. I can do good work on it but every time I shift the head it's a PITA re-tramming it (goes for all this type of machine) so I try to not do it. Those joints all can move under load. If you're not going to use that capacity reasonably frequently, why bother having it?

I'd take a Series 1 B/port over any drill-mill in an instant, however. No question at all. If I found a reasonably good one, I'd take it over one of the H&F turret mills of the same nominal capacity, too.

As I said, it all depends on what sort of work you want to do. Most of the stuff I do runs between maybe 20mm up to 300mm diameter, sometimes up to 750mm dia, lengths from less than 5mm up to 3m. My biggest machine has a work envelope of 1200 x 600 x 600mm. Marine stuff tends towards the larger size. So I have a range of machines and use the one most appropriate to the task (or the one that's free when the others are loaded with half finished projects......)

PDW

Originally Posted by PDW

A Deckel FP4 with all the accessories.

Winning Lotto is proving to be a challenge though.

PDW

I am actually starting to see the light on these Deckel type mills...

I even see Deckel made them up to a FP7... 6500kg of Deckel...

But they do seem to need to be really accessorised to get the most out of them... A basic one can be well, basic.....

It is really very hard to say what is the bee's knees.... Because you could also include such mills styles like the Huron or the Gambin, or even the Fexac type UMS, which are all different styles from the conventional basic mill design.. Then you get into horizontal borers which can be a milling machine style on their own if they come with accessories like a vertical head...

While lathes generally just do turning, mills can do a lot more... And one mill design can do things another cannot, and vice versa. So you need more then one mill...