[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by Cory

Virtually all the bridgeport clones should have fairly interchangeable parts. Even if the factory is closed, if it closed recently Acra/their dealers may still have access to some spare parts inventory.

Hard to say if it's a good purchase without pictures. If there is minimal backlash and spindle runout and everything sounds OK it will probably do a good job for you.

Before buying you should check and see what DRO scale types it's wired with. It may not actually be a bonus that those are present. Depending on the age they may be considered obsolete by the manufacturer and you may not be able to buy an actual readout for it (though ebay/CL might be an option). We were looking to add a scale to the Y axis on our old mill and due to the age of the scales we'd have been forced to remove the existing X axis scale and buy two new scales plus the readout unit.

Good reminder on the DRO scale types. Meant to snag some information on it when I was leaving but forgot. There's not much backlash on the handles to move the table. Forgive my unfamiliarity with some terminology, but one area of concern I have is that the seller had to go grab a spindle (I believe it's the spindle - whatever drops into the head from above that the collet fits into) and there wasn't a keyway or a key. The collets had a keyway, but the quill and spindle didnt seem to have any sort of key or keyway. I think he was saying he'd provide one for us that did have the key, but English wasn't his first language so I'm not confident that conversation was the same for both of us. Since I have little experience with milling machines, I'm not sure if a friction lock type spindle is something that is common or should be avoided. That said, there wasn't any obvious spindle runout once we went through that process.

I've got some pictures but because I was mostly focused on pictures to help me make sure I figured out who manufactured it, I'm not sure how useful it'll be: http://imgur.com/a/m6oBd