Please help me select a vendor for Hobby manual mill

[suspension]

hello
I am planning to buy a hobby type manual mill for under 1500 GPB. My plan is to convert it to cnc later.
I've done some research about vendors in UK and came up with the following list.

Machine mart - one machine which looks good: https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/cl-cmd300-mill-drill/
most machines from warco: good range of machines that look good atleast. My current preference is warco.
most machines from chester: looks bit more expensive than warco, but there are few machines that I like.
some from zoro - One or two machines with in my budget
most from arceurotrade - most hobby machines are with in my budget but they dont have a huge selection
axminster - Expensive than most other vendors

I would like to hear about others experiences in dealing with these vendors and quality of their machines. My current preference is Warco or due to their huge selection and lower prices.

Cheers
S

[cropwell]

Most (not all) of these machines come from the Weiss factory in China. They are made to a price for some vendors, like Machine Mart, and others take a standard product with their own badging and livery. I have a Clarke CMD10 milling machine and a CL300 lathe, which I bought some years ago. I only rate them as toys, they need a lot of fettling to get them set up properly to do any serious work and they are certainly classified as hobby use only.

Amadeal, Axminster, Chester, Emvio and Warco are all basically the same machine ranges. My lathe is from Amadeal and I think you have to weigh up the supplier you choose on the basis of price and support.

On re-reading your post, if you plan to convert to CNC later - talk to Emvio, the main man there posts on this forum as Komatias, I believe he is doing CNC conversion kits for his mills.

Cheers,

Rob

[suspension]

Most (not all) of these machines come from the Weiss factory in China. They are made to a price for some vendors, like Machine Mart, and others take a standard product with their own badging and livery. I have a Clarke CMD10 milling machine and a CL300 lathe, which I bought some years ago. I only rate them as toys, they need a lot of fettling to get them set up properly to do any serious work and they are certainly classified as hobby use only.

Amadeal, Axminster, Chester, Emvio and Warco are all basically the same machine ranges. My lathe is from Amadeal and I think you have to weigh up the supplier you choose on the basis of price and support.

On re-reading your post, if you plan to convert to CNC later - talk to Emvio, the main man there posts on this forum as Komatias, I believe he is doing CNC conversion kits for his mills.

Cheers,

Rob

Twashanks a lot. The name weiss is new to me. I thought most of these machines are from seig.
I will also look at weiss and see if I can import one directly.

[m_c]

There are a few different factories, but the basic machines are all very similar. IIRC Seig, Syil, and Weiss all have their own factories, and produce for various people.

All you can really do is decide how much travel you really need (or can afford/fit in your workshop), then compare specs of the machines that meet those requirements. Personally I'd put more emphasis on the spindle than other features. If you're going big enough, try and get a BT/ISO spindle, as they are far more useable in a CNC context than MT/R8 spindles.
To get a good well adjusted machine, you're going to have to spend a bit time cleaning/tweaking/adjusting any of them anyway, so I wouldn't be swayed over any particular brand.