Monochron,
One place to find machine tools is manufacturing associations. One I try to point out is the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA). Greensboro has a chapter.
Piedmont Chapter
PO Box 13355
Greensboro, NC 27415
Phone 336-312-9197
Fax 336-868-7770
http://www.ntma.org
Edge finders are great for quickly picking up edges but they will only be as accurate in relationship to the run out of the edge finder body. If the body is running out .010 total indicator reading (TIR) do not plan on anything better than .005 in position.
I would like to highly discourage the use of milling on a drill press in a teaching environment. Someone in their own shop in one thing but when students are involved it’s a different story. Starting RPM for a ¼ inch high speed end mill is over 3,000 rpm which is faster than most drill presses will run. With that kind of speed, chatter could break the taper loose on the chuck without any warning.
Mr. Mike