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Stan from the Chaski forum, July 2002 wrote-
Been thinking too much. Always a bad thing. No I don't need one, got two perfectly functional mills at home, but I want a Deckel or the like at home to play with. Now seriously considering options and checkbook's getting frightened. Need to ask the group, D + Sean especially, how rigid is a FP1 or FP2 compared with say a standard B-port like turret mill. Can you comfortably run a 2" carbide insert cutter on tool steel with an FP1? The FP4 is a familiar beast to run (and could buy locally) but I havn't seen any accessories for it for sale despite years of watching (perhaps in the wrong places). I could get the machine with a slotting head, standard vertical head but no dividing attachment or other tooling which I would use. Would like to use the type of dividing head Sean is selling for an FP1. Truely universal! Was this also available for FP4's? What other tooling was available for an FP4? The other side of my brain keeps whispering go smaller. How much should a good (but not excellent) condition FP2 (in California) with a swivel table but no other tooling, approx early 1970s 40int spindles go for. Thanks for your help.
Cheers, Stan
Reply By: Sean S in SoCal
Hmmm, well....
Comparing an FP-1 to a Bridgeport is a bit odd. I no longer have a BP manual mill, but from memory it cut about the same as my FP-1's do now.
I don't have a 2 inch carbide cutter to do your test with, but I ran a 4" (around 10 flute) HS cutter through some aluminum at about 1/2" of cut just to tempt fate. It vibrated a bit and took the cut. I have had no problem snapping 3/4" endmills doing a plunge into some welded steel...didn't even slow.
The FP-1's come out to around 2HP which is similar to a Series 1 Brideport.
I don't consider the FP-1's as "workhorse" mills, but they are surely powerful for their size.
Now the thing with the FP-2's is that they most likely surpass the BP by a fair margin in cutting power, but it is much harder to find attachments for. As a matter of fact, it is much harder to find attachments for most of the larger Deckels.
The FP-1 is the do-it-all gadget slicer-dicer, get you out of (or into) trouble mill, and I suppose a lot of attachments were ordered with these whereas the larger (and astronomically expensive) Deckels were ordered by pro shops to do a single job (thereby not needing additional expensive gizmo's)
Most of the larger machines usually stick to tool holders and such, and occationally have a built in rotary table of some sort.
Anyway, the FP-1 is *the* mill to have, but can be supplimented by a larger "roughing" mill such as a beat Bridgeport, Cinn', or KT when you want to blast a 2in slot out of a car bumper project or something similar.
For those lucky enough, an FP-1/FP-3(or higher) combo would cover every base, although you'd still hesitate to put "junk" work on such a nice mill.
Figure on adding 1k to 1.5k for the swivel table alone, although frankly (owning 2 universal tables), you rarely use it. It's one of those "neat" things that is cool to have on occation, but for me, I hate to have to re-tram the table if I unlock it, so I usually end up using some sort of angle plate or whatever to achieve any angular milling. In other words, universal is really (really) cool, but a standard table machine has some practical advantages as well (including a bit more rigidity).
Anyway, that's my opinion...FP-1, and if you need more oooomph, then suplement it. FP-2 just are too hard to find the stuff for, and FP-3's and 4's are terrific mills, but will lack the James Bond stuff.
Both my Deckel and it's Dividing head went cheap.
I will be sorry to see them go. FP-2's should be worth less in my opinion, but it seems that the owners of them think they should be worth more because of the higher model increment. To each their own I suppose...it is a good mill.
My advice is just to pony up and get one. Save the extra bux and do it right. Keep it for 6 months and figure out if you are a "Deckelite". If not, you will probably make money on what you invested as they seem to be going up in value.
Hope this helps
Sean
Posted By: Stan
It does help. I'm trying to figure out whether to sell my B-port for room (and money) for a new mill...thats why the "odd" question: I know what it and a FP4 can do but not an FP1. Do you have any brochures on what tooling an FP4 could have had, Deckel-Maho have not responded to e-mails. Thanks again, Stan
Response By: Sean S in SoCal
Hey Stan,
Well, that's why my answer is a bit vague. Only you can decide if you can replace a Bridgeport with an FP-1.
Obviously the travels are shorter. The operation (from the side) takes a little getting used to, and I would error on the safe side and say that an FP-1 is a little less rigid than a full-sized BP, but pretty close...especially considering that the FP-1 is about 1/2 the size.
It's hard to beat a BP style mill for general purpose milling and hard to explain why many Deckel folks would still prefer the Deckels.
For one thing, the way you work on the Deckels is different.... you are closer to the table and all the handles and speed/feed controls are all right in front of you. It makes for a much more "personal" relationship with the work. On the FP-1, swapping attachments is fast and doesn't interupt your train of thought figuring it out and setting it up...things like that...almost intangable like the placement of the controls in a car. The vertical table allows you to bolt almost anything in place of factory Deckel table (like bolting a swivel vise in place of a table, or a set of motorized centers..etc).
I mean *instead* of a table, not *to* one of the tables. Remember, the "table" on these machines is part of the machine and the right angle and universal tables are considered "attachments".
The powerfeeds are on a single lever in the case of the FP-1, and it becomes a familiar place to reach (again, right in front of you). Also, because of the layout of the ways in this design of machine, you don't have any horizontal ways for chips to land on and get ground in like on the Y axis ways of a BP, which is probably why I see tons of BP's with record groove ways and haven't seen the same on a single Deckel yet.
The swiveling head is *easy* to swivel....two bolts, and is not as intimidating as swiveling a BP head.
It's little things throughout the whole machine that give it it's charm.
The marvel of design itself, with the entire mechanism being *in* the body of the machine facinates me every time I stare at it.
Geared operation insead of pulleys for speed changes is amazingly fast, and if you need true variable speed, you can do that via VFD and not suffer the woes of plastic BP bushings, vibrations and rattles.
You could switch an FP-1 from horizontal to vertical 5 times in the span that you could mount a right angle head and support on a BP, and often you can leave a horizontal cutter in the horizontal spindle while still using the vertical head ( I see this a lot), which allows you two operations in one setup.
On the Deckels, slotting is a simple 10 second head swap whereas you need to turn the entire ram around on a BP..eletrics and all, and tram it in...assuming you have the space to actually turn the ram arount (hard to do in a corner).
The list goes on and on.
What I was getting at is that the Deckels (especially the "1") are different enough from a standard knee mill that it is hard to suggest it as a replacement. It is not really about spec's or performance, but more about an alternate way of working with a milling machine...a way that I have grown much more comfortable with.
The FP-1 is surely the most versatile of the Deckel line, but you are going to have to consider the travels and what you are working on.
If you are maxing out your BP in cuts and travels, then it's probably not a good choice for you, but if you are generally working on smaller items, it's probably fine. We are only talking about a couple more passes *if* the BP is more rigid...it's pretty close.
Again, you can get all the toys for almost all the Deckels, but it is very rare to find...say... a slotting head for models higher than an FP-1, and if you do have them, they weigh a ton (I have a high-speed head for my FP-2 that would require a hoist to get it on the machine), which negates the speed of switching operations on the larger Deckels if you were lucky enough to have the other attachments for the larger mills.
The bright side is....
If you do sell your BP, you can always get another. Deckels are being hoarded as they fall out of the machine shops that didn't make it, and I suspect they will dry up over the next few years and live happily in the home shop environment.
As I said, the perfect combo is an FP-1 for all the small-medium precision work, and *something* else for big travel, metal hogging work. Even if the smaller machines can take the cut, I prefer to pamper them whenever possible.
I hope I'm making some kind of sense here.
Sean
Been thinking too much. Always a bad thing. No I don't need one, got two perfectly functional mills at home, but I want a Deckel or the like at home to play with. Now seriously considering options and checkbook's getting frightened. Need to ask the group, D + Sean especially, how rigid is a FP1 or FP2 compared with say a standard B-port like turret mill. Can you comfortably run a 2" carbide insert cutter on tool steel with an FP1? The FP4 is a familiar beast to run (and could buy locally) but I havn't seen any accessories for it for sale despite years of watching (perhaps in the wrong places). I could get the machine with a slotting head, standard vertical head but no dividing attachment or other tooling which I would use. Would like to use the type of dividing head Sean is selling for an FP1. Truely universal! Was this also available for FP4's? What other tooling was available for an FP4? The other side of my brain keeps whispering go smaller. How much should a good (but not excellent) condition FP2 (in California) with a swivel table but no other tooling, approx early 1970s 40int spindles go for. Thanks for your help.
Cheers, Stan
Reply By: Sean S in SoCal
Hmmm, well....
Comparing an FP-1 to a Bridgeport is a bit odd. I no longer have a BP manual mill, but from memory it cut about the same as my FP-1's do now.
I don't have a 2 inch carbide cutter to do your test with, but I ran a 4" (around 10 flute) HS cutter through some aluminum at about 1/2" of cut just to tempt fate. It vibrated a bit and took the cut. I have had no problem snapping 3/4" endmills doing a plunge into some welded steel...didn't even slow.
The FP-1's come out to around 2HP which is similar to a Series 1 Brideport.
I don't consider the FP-1's as "workhorse" mills, but they are surely powerful for their size.
Now the thing with the FP-2's is that they most likely surpass the BP by a fair margin in cutting power, but it is much harder to find attachments for. As a matter of fact, it is much harder to find attachments for most of the larger Deckels.
The FP-1 is the do-it-all gadget slicer-dicer, get you out of (or into) trouble mill, and I suppose a lot of attachments were ordered with these whereas the larger (and astronomically expensive) Deckels were ordered by pro shops to do a single job (thereby not needing additional expensive gizmo's)
Most of the larger machines usually stick to tool holders and such, and occationally have a built in rotary table of some sort.
Anyway, the FP-1 is *the* mill to have, but can be supplimented by a larger "roughing" mill such as a beat Bridgeport, Cinn', or KT when you want to blast a 2in slot out of a car bumper project or something similar.
For those lucky enough, an FP-1/FP-3(or higher) combo would cover every base, although you'd still hesitate to put "junk" work on such a nice mill.
Figure on adding 1k to 1.5k for the swivel table alone, although frankly (owning 2 universal tables), you rarely use it. It's one of those "neat" things that is cool to have on occation, but for me, I hate to have to re-tram the table if I unlock it, so I usually end up using some sort of angle plate or whatever to achieve any angular milling. In other words, universal is really (really) cool, but a standard table machine has some practical advantages as well (including a bit more rigidity).
Anyway, that's my opinion...FP-1, and if you need more oooomph, then suplement it. FP-2 just are too hard to find the stuff for, and FP-3's and 4's are terrific mills, but will lack the James Bond stuff.
Both my Deckel and it's Dividing head went cheap.
I will be sorry to see them go. FP-2's should be worth less in my opinion, but it seems that the owners of them think they should be worth more because of the higher model increment. To each their own I suppose...it is a good mill.
My advice is just to pony up and get one. Save the extra bux and do it right. Keep it for 6 months and figure out if you are a "Deckelite". If not, you will probably make money on what you invested as they seem to be going up in value.
Hope this helps
Sean
Posted By: Stan
It does help. I'm trying to figure out whether to sell my B-port for room (and money) for a new mill...thats why the "odd" question: I know what it and a FP4 can do but not an FP1. Do you have any brochures on what tooling an FP4 could have had, Deckel-Maho have not responded to e-mails. Thanks again, Stan
Response By: Sean S in SoCal
Hey Stan,
Well, that's why my answer is a bit vague. Only you can decide if you can replace a Bridgeport with an FP-1.
Obviously the travels are shorter. The operation (from the side) takes a little getting used to, and I would error on the safe side and say that an FP-1 is a little less rigid than a full-sized BP, but pretty close...especially considering that the FP-1 is about 1/2 the size.
It's hard to beat a BP style mill for general purpose milling and hard to explain why many Deckel folks would still prefer the Deckels.
For one thing, the way you work on the Deckels is different.... you are closer to the table and all the handles and speed/feed controls are all right in front of you. It makes for a much more "personal" relationship with the work. On the FP-1, swapping attachments is fast and doesn't interupt your train of thought figuring it out and setting it up...things like that...almost intangable like the placement of the controls in a car. The vertical table allows you to bolt almost anything in place of factory Deckel table (like bolting a swivel vise in place of a table, or a set of motorized centers..etc).
I mean *instead* of a table, not *to* one of the tables. Remember, the "table" on these machines is part of the machine and the right angle and universal tables are considered "attachments".
The powerfeeds are on a single lever in the case of the FP-1, and it becomes a familiar place to reach (again, right in front of you). Also, because of the layout of the ways in this design of machine, you don't have any horizontal ways for chips to land on and get ground in like on the Y axis ways of a BP, which is probably why I see tons of BP's with record groove ways and haven't seen the same on a single Deckel yet.
The swiveling head is *easy* to swivel....two bolts, and is not as intimidating as swiveling a BP head.
It's little things throughout the whole machine that give it it's charm.
The marvel of design itself, with the entire mechanism being *in* the body of the machine facinates me every time I stare at it.
Geared operation insead of pulleys for speed changes is amazingly fast, and if you need true variable speed, you can do that via VFD and not suffer the woes of plastic BP bushings, vibrations and rattles.
You could switch an FP-1 from horizontal to vertical 5 times in the span that you could mount a right angle head and support on a BP, and often you can leave a horizontal cutter in the horizontal spindle while still using the vertical head ( I see this a lot), which allows you two operations in one setup.
On the Deckels, slotting is a simple 10 second head swap whereas you need to turn the entire ram around on a BP..eletrics and all, and tram it in...assuming you have the space to actually turn the ram arount (hard to do in a corner).
The list goes on and on.
What I was getting at is that the Deckels (especially the "1") are different enough from a standard knee mill that it is hard to suggest it as a replacement. It is not really about spec's or performance, but more about an alternate way of working with a milling machine...a way that I have grown much more comfortable with.
The FP-1 is surely the most versatile of the Deckel line, but you are going to have to consider the travels and what you are working on.
If you are maxing out your BP in cuts and travels, then it's probably not a good choice for you, but if you are generally working on smaller items, it's probably fine. We are only talking about a couple more passes *if* the BP is more rigid...it's pretty close.
Again, you can get all the toys for almost all the Deckels, but it is very rare to find...say... a slotting head for models higher than an FP-1, and if you do have them, they weigh a ton (I have a high-speed head for my FP-2 that would require a hoist to get it on the machine), which negates the speed of switching operations on the larger Deckels if you were lucky enough to have the other attachments for the larger mills.
The bright side is....
If you do sell your BP, you can always get another. Deckels are being hoarded as they fall out of the machine shops that didn't make it, and I suspect they will dry up over the next few years and live happily in the home shop environment.
As I said, the perfect combo is an FP-1 for all the small-medium precision work, and *something* else for big travel, metal hogging work. Even if the smaller machines can take the cut, I prefer to pamper them whenever possible.
I hope I'm making some kind of sense here.
Sean
