Quote Originally Posted by Davek0974 View Post
I was looking at those machines too ;) theres some good stuff on there at present.

The worst part with a BP conversion is the Z axis/quill drive - it has to be canted out in front of the quill and all the force must go through a single bolt into the quill - that bolt was never made to take anything more than a quill-stop :)

As the screw is driving the quill from one side there is a lot of axial twist moment on the screw which is not good, they work but i don't know how long for.

At the end of the day with a BP you take a machine worth maybe £3k, spend £8k on it and its worth maybe £3k - there is no return value here.
The return is you have an accurate machine which weighs 875Kg, has a small foot print, low current, spares are cheap second hand because so many were manufactured, many conversions have been done on Bridgeports and ballscrew drawings are available, if it breaks you can fix it.