I have been kinda looking for a mill for our shop and this one presented itself pretty close to home. It's a Cincinnati Milacron 2MK. Does anyone on here happen to have any experience with this type of mill? We will be using it mainly for building machining tooling, boring parts, and tapping holes (mainly 1/2") I am hoping to get some insight on this before making a decision if we should get it or not. Thanks and happy Friday!
More Pictures
Final picture I have of it.
While you may well find someone Cincinnati knowledgeable on this site, my recommendation would be the "Practical Machinist" forum
The biggiest thing with any old machine tool is how much tooling you get with it. We have a greaves cincinnati and there is no parts anywhere for it. But we got a pile of tooling with it and that will all fit other machines
I am on that site also. I have had the same question up over there for a few days with no hits. But as soon as I put it on here I got two replies over there! Internet algorithms or coincident? I don't know. Thanks for the tip though, that's a good site for machining knowledge.
I did ask about the tooling and the guy said he could throw in "some" tooling. Not sure what that means yet. It's at a colony if you know what I mean, so that's just normal business lingo with those guys.
Make sure there is enough Z axis for your needs. A lot of those horizontal mills with the vertical head bolted on have a lack of Z axis room once you add a vice and have a cutter in the spindle.
Back in my cattle hauling days I loaded at a few colonies in Montana. Very interesting to say the least. I remember one time I backed into the shoot at a colony to load and they had my hood open before I got out of the truck. The truck was only a couple months old with a C-15 Cat motor. At first I thought something was wrong but they were just looking things over and asking me questions that I couldn't answer about the motor.
Tapping ? No quill on it that I can see.
That looks like an ER style collet adapter in a 40 or 50 taper spindle. The Jacobs chuck probably has a straight shank if it isn't a special ER shank. I've never seen that though. Tapping won't be very handy on it, as DDoug noted. Tooling for that spindle should be pretty common, as it is still in use. Face mills, shell mill holders, end mill holders, etc are still made. It id not efficient for milling aluminum, IMO...too slow. Cincinnati made a solid, heavy machine.
I'd pass. From your other posts it isn't big enough. It is a milling machine, not a drilling and tapping machine. For that you need a radial arm drill. Cincinnati made some good machines but always had to play second fiddle to K &T in the milling department. Depending on bore size, tolerance, and length a horizontal boring mill may be the right choice. It will do all of your above mentioned tasks with speed and accuracy. If you want to drive to SW Missouri I know of much better choices of both a mill and radial arm drill.
While the bridgeport style mill is about as rigid as a wet noodle, they are hard to beat when it comes to flexibility. Especially if you get one of the ones with the bigger quill diameter. They are not metal hoggers but not much they cannot do when you accessorise them. Line boring a Monarch 10EE lathe tailstock with the horizontal attachment.
We did end up with a decent old Radial Arm Drill and a portable line bore machine. Guess I'm thinking about backups if something is being used or not. We are also doing a bunch of line boring with a old lathe so building tools to build parts is not below us. I'm going to go look at this mill anyhow, it'll have to be a smoking deal though.
Not on that particular mill but starting at the age of I think 19, I spent at least 10 years running similar mills. Cincinnati's and K&T's. Happy I got in on the last of the major manual machining. The big knee mills and verci powers I ran ranged from 30 to 50 HP that is huge for mills. The number or size of the machine is determined by the horizontal table travel. Number 3 is about 30 some inches, Number 4 would be close to 4 foot etc. They are nice and stable for heavy cuts, I have done boring on them, but if its full mechanical you will not be power tapping with it. You have a better chance tapping on a turret mill (that Bridgeport). That machine is way newer than the newest I would have run, 1970's models. And a bit smaller to, but we did have small ones as well. There are some outfits that may have parts for some of them, as that can be a issue nowadays. These old mills are essentially a transmission with lots of gearing, this one you show may be different some what there, I don't now. RC is very correct, those turret mills, Bridgeports or Jets as well as some others are the best for extreme flexibility. Easier to move as well, they are not super heavy cut machines but are pretty accurate. The larger machine good for roughing, heavy cutting. But need the HP to do that. Depending on what you need to do having both that and a turret mill would be handy. The Cincinnati would be great to cut J type or vee weld preps, we did lots of that on special stainless steel parts back in the day. Yup I have worn lots of hats in my various careers. As far as machining I have machined some not so safe materials in the beginning days.
Went and looked at the mill this morning. It looks decent for what it is, good shape, clean ways, and a boat load of tooling. They also have a 1999 press break there, not as big as what I was wanting, but again it has a bunch of extra dies. Sounding like the price will be fair and they will deliver, so maybe we'll have to push some stuff around in the shop and cram sound more tools in here.
If its in good shape I'd like it as well. But would need to be the right price. Good on the deliver deal as long as its not costing a bunch. What is the weight? Looks like a 8K pounds?
They said they moved it with a 6k telehandler and the REALLY knew they had something.
Any more news on this deal?
We ended up getting this mill along with a older press break and radial arm drill all from the same place. The break and radial arm are hooked up and working fine, the mill we haven't been able to get going yet, I think it might be just a loose wire somewhere, but we haven't had time to get it figured out and haven't needed to yet. The guys we got it from have been trying to be helpful about it and have also giving us a pile of tooling, I think something might of jiggled loose when they were hauling it here.