I've been looking for a mill to keep my lathe company since the start of the year. Having increasingly needed one, I thought I should be making some kind of decision. It came down to the HM-46/47/48 from H&F, the "Optimum, but not really" BF-30 from Redfox or the Optimum MH-28V from H&F. I decided the BF-30 was going to be a bit too expensive in terms of freight, although I liked the idea of its 2.2kW variable speed motor, 3 speed gearbox and auto tapping mode, but the delivered price is something like $4,700 versus $3,200 for the MH-28V.

There's a useful thread comparing the HM-46 and the MH-28V here:
https://metalworkforums.com/f223/t20...co-mill-drills

Which concludes that the Optimum machine is considerably lighter-weight that the HM-46, which makes sense, as the latter is 50kg heavier. However I kind of trust that the Optimum machine is likely to be better finished than the HM-46, I like the variable speed, and there's a bunch in Qld who flog plans, instructions and support for a CNC conversion for the MH-28V, which is something I'm fairly keen on, keeping in mind the caveats mentioned here regarding hobby-grade CNCs.

I'm not totally decided yet - I'm going to get a price from the local dealer who resells the H&F range, and see if they have a compelling opinion.

Regardless of what I get, I also need to sort out some initial tooling & a vice. All I have at the moment is a set of HSS endmills... I'm thinking an MT3 to ER32 chuck and some collets would be a good start, but any suggestions, particularly in regards to a vice would be appreciated.


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