Originally Posted by Hemi_Joel
If a guy who is a hobbyist like me wanted to do all his own machine work instead of farming it out, Stuff like block squaring, cylinder boring, cylinder head work, etc. but not buy a whole slew of different machines, would a Bridgeport series to mill be a good choice? I could make up some good fixtures, or buy some BHJ stuff. Has anyone done something like this? I have a Bridgeport series I, but it's not big enough for doing blocks. Thanks, Joel

Bridgeport Series II specs


Short answer, no. But a few things can be bought cheap right now. A Storm Vulcan Blockmaster 85B would be one. It can deck blocks and cut heads. You might pick up a good one for $5,000. Maybe less. And it will last longer than you will. You might find a good Rottler boring bar for $5,000. But really, it you had a good Sunnen CK-10 for cylinder honing you could use it to bore out if you had to. $10,000 for a 85B and CK-10 would give you a lot of fun. And that's probably a lot less money than you've lost in the stock market in the last 3 weeks.

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